PALEOZOIC TIME — CAPwBONIC. 631 



CARBONIC ERA. 



Stnontmt. — Carboniferous and Permian periods, Lyell {Elements of Geol., 1839), 

 and other British geologists, German geologists, and D'Orbigny, 1851, in France. Carbo- 

 niferous age (Permian included), Dana, 3Ian. Gfeol., 1st edit., 1863, 2d edit., 1874, 3d edit., 

 1880; Le Conte, Elements of Geol, 1877, and later; A. Winchell, GeoL Studies, 1886. 

 Permo-Carboniferous, Dawson, Suppl. Acad. Geol., 1878. Carboniferous, Permo-Carbo- 

 niferous, W. M. Fontaine and I. C. White, on Permian Plants of W. Va. and Penn., 1880. 

 Pernio- Carbonif ere, Lapparent, Tr. de Geol., 1883. Permo-Carbonic, Portuguese Commit- 

 tee Internal. Cougr. Geol., 1886. Carbonic (Permic or Permian included), E. Renevier, 

 Tableau des Terrains Sedimentaires, 1874, Int. Congr. Geol., 188t}. 



This first great coal-making era in the world's history commenced, both 

 in Europe and America, with an extensive submergence of the land and a 

 consequent formation of marine terranes of great thickness over parts of 

 the continental areas. It passed its culmination during a long period of gen- 

 tle oscillations in the surface, causing successive, more or less wide, emer- 

 gencies and submergencies, the former favoring the growth of boundless 

 forests and jungles, the latter burying the vegetable debris and other terres- 

 trial accumulations beneath marine or fresh-water deposits. It declined 

 through a period in which the Carboniferous marshes gradually disappeared, 

 as the sea regained its place over the land ; but again to retreat, as Paleozoic 

 time ended, and the making of the Appalachian Mountains — the next great 

 event in North American history — was commenced. 



The occurrence in Europe of alternating conditions like those of eastern 

 North America is part of the evidence that the coal formations of the two 

 continents were essentially cotemporaneous in origin. Facts from the fossils 

 sustain this conclusion. They lead to the following subdivisions of the 

 era : — 



Subdivisions of the Carbonic Era. 



3. PERMiAisr Period. — Part of New Ked Sandstone or Poikilitic group of 



J. Phillips (the rest Trias). 

 Lower New Eed Sandstone or Magnesian limestone group, Lyell, El. Geol., 



2d edit., 1841. 

 Permian, Murchison, Leonli. %i. Bronn's Jahrb., 1841, Phil. Mag., xix. 417 ; 



Murchison, de Verneuil, and Keyserling, Geol. Eiiss., 1845 ; Lyell, El. 



Geol, 3d edit., 1851. Permisches System, Geinitz, 1848, 1858. 

 Part of Mercian (the rest Triassic and Jurassic), T. McK. Hughes, Proc. 



Cambr. Phil. Soc, in. 24. 

 Dyas, J. Marcou, Dyas et Trias, Geneve, 1859, H. B. Geinitz, 1861, 1862 



(Murchison's Permian having been made by him to include a small part 



of the Trias in Germany, though not of that in England) . 



2. Carboniferous Period. — The Coal-measures, with the underlying Mill- 

 stone Grit. 

 Carboniferous period of Lyell, Murchison, and other English geologists 

 (the Mountain limestone commonly included). 



