MURCHISON ON THE PERMIAN SYSTEM. 81 



These inferences can be only put forth as provisional, until a 

 thorough examination of the deposits described by Mr. Kaye in 

 their stratigraphical relations be made, and the fossils of those 

 localities which he did not visit have,' been still further examined 

 on the spot. To the palaeontologist his collections are invaluable, 

 as the specimens are in so fine a state of preservation, as to permit 

 of an examination of their minute structure. 



The descriptions of fifteen of the Trinconopoly species in the 

 catalogues were furnished to Mr. Kaye by Mr. George Sowerby. 



[Note. With regard to this report, it was also intended that it should 

 have been accompanied by a descriptive catalogue of the fossils, and by figures 

 of new species, and it is in so far, therefore, incomplete. It is published in this 

 place as an indication of the important results actually arrived at by the study of 

 these interesting fossils. — Ed.] 



4. On the Permian System as developed in Russia and other 

 Parts of Europe. By Roderick Impey Murchison, Esq., 

 F.G.S., V.P.R.S., and M. E. de Verneuil, Hon. Mem. Geo. 

 Soc. of London. 



On the part of his associates, M. de Verneuil and Count Key- 

 serling, and himself, Mr. Murchison has previously explained in the 

 Proceedings of the Geol. Soc. the nature of the various deposits 

 which constitute the subsoil of European Russia. As in all other 

 parts of the world which have been adequately examined, the 

 Silurian rocks are those which contain the earliest forms of animal 

 life, and in Russia they are overlaid by Devonian and carboni- 

 ferous deposits, each of which is there singularly well defined by 

 its organic remains and regular superposition. 



In common with many other geologists, Mr. Murchison was 

 formerly of opinion * that the above-mentioned three systems con- 

 stituted the whole Palaeozoic series, but the examination of Russia 

 and Germany has led him to include also therein the next group 

 in ascending order, or that to which he had assigned "j* the name of 

 Permian. 



When two or more conterminous formations are shown to have 

 a community of fossils, it has recently been deemed essential to 

 group them under one name ; and following the practice of as- 

 signing to any such newly classed group a geographical name 



* See " Silurian System," p. 46. et seq. In England Professor Phillips has, 

 however, sOYne time maintained that the fossils of the magnesian limestone 

 ought to be grouped with the inferior strata. 



f See "Letter to M. Fischer Von Waldheim, Sept. 1841"; Leonhard's 

 " Jahr Buch," part i. p. 91 1842 ; " Phil. Magazine," vol. xix. p. 418. 



VOL. I. G 



