TRIAS—COAL. 65 
they are developed in Germany. The German portion, 
judging by its influxes, must be regarded as a forma- 
tion of strands and bays; its more highly integrated 
equivalent in the Alps as a huge oceanic deposit. The 
Muschelkalk (which is missing in England), with its 
layers of rock salt and rich remains of oceanic organisms, 
is likewise a marine formation. Of the origin of the 
stratified variegated sandstone, so-called from its varied 
colouring, with its clays, marls, and frequent vast enclo- 
sures of gypsum, we obtain some idea from our present 
formations of sandy shores and dunes. Like these, the 
deposition of the variegated sandstone afforded but 
scanty opportunities of enclosing animal and vegetal 
remains, but very notable footprints have been preserved, 
such as might now be formed and preserved, if the 
marks imprinted on the damp sand were filled up with 
fine clayey particles torn by astorm from some adjacent 
shore, and subdivided in the sea. 
As the diversified appearance of the superimposed 
planes of antediluvian plants and animals of course 
depends essentially on the nature of their former abodes, 
and as the nature of the individual districts of each 
plane must then, as now, have influenced the character 
of the organisms by which it was inhabited, we will 
indicate the causes which thus affect life in its form and 
manifold variety. In order to complete our view of the 
origin of the Earth’s crust, and the dependence of the 
organic on the configuration of the inorganic world, we 
will leave a geologist, Credner, to describe the relations 
of the dyassic and carboniferous formations: “In regions 
where the carboniferous (coal) formation is typically 
developed, it consists of a series of stratifications, the 
