370 



PALEOZOIC TIME. 



colors, of marsh origin, with some gypsum. There is an occasional thin seam of coal. 

 The strata cover a region over the interior of Russia more than twice as large as all 

 France, including the greater part of the governments of Perm, Orenburg, Kazan, 

 Nijni Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Viatka, and Vologda (Murchison). The de- 

 posits are flanked and underlaid on nearly all sides by different members of the Car- 

 boniferous formation containing comparatively little coal. 



The coincidence is worth noting, that the Permian rocks of Russia, or interior 

 Europe, lie between its great river, the Volga, and the summit of the Ural Mountains, 

 just as, in interior North America, they occur between its great river, the Mississippi, 

 and the Rocky Mountain summits. It may be that, on both continents, the region 

 between the great river and the ocean had been raised above the sea during the pre- 

 ceding changes. 



The Permian has also been recognized near Bell Sound in Spitzbergen; and Von 

 Koninck has described several fossils from it. 



The coal formation of Illawarra and Hunter's River, Australia, is probably Permian, 

 as stated by the author in his notes on Australian Geology, Geol. Rep. Wilkes' Expl. 

 Exped., 4to, 1849. 



The lower part of the Lower Permian of England contains, in some places, bed9 of 

 coarse conglomerate, containing angular masses of rock of great size ; and Ramsay 

 attributes the transportation of the blocks to floating ice. 



II. Life. 



1. Plants. 



The Permian plants are closely related to those of the Upper Coal- 

 measures. They are mostly of the same genera, and in part of the 

 same species. There are Calamites, Equiseta, Ferns, including Tree- 



Figs. 692-695. 



Figs. 692, 693, Neuropteris Loschii ; 694, 694 a, Annularia carinata; 695, Walchia piriformis. 



ferns, and a number of Conifers and Cycads ; yet the prevalence of 

 some new kinds gives a somewhat different aspect to the flora. Among 

 Lycopods, the genus Walchia (Fig. 695) is most characteristic. 



The Ferns were of the genera Neuropteris, Sphenopteris, Pecopteris, Alethopteris, etc. ; 

 and there were also species of Asterophyllites and Annularia, as well as Calamites, Coal- 

 measure genera. Calamites yigas Brngt. is a large and common species. On the other 



