798 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



interior waters. Besides, the surface rocks of the continent are to a large 

 extent Permian, Triassic, or Jurassic. Marsupials and Monotremes formerly- 

 had a wide range over the globe. A large Echidna, or Monotreme Porcupine, 

 was among the species of England in the Middle Quaternary ; and Marsupials, 

 among the Mammals of Europe and America in the Tertiary ; but at the 

 present time the few of South and North America are all that exist out of 

 Australia. It cannot be affirmed that Triassic Australia was the source of 

 all the Marsupials of the world ; but there is little doubt that its only Triassic 

 Mammals were Marsupials and Monotremes. 



It has already been explained that New Guinea and New Zealand show 

 by their faunas that they were once parts of a great Australasian continent, 

 New Guinea having its Marsupials, and New Zealand the only surviving 

 species of the Permian and Triassic tribe of Rhynchocephalians, in a species 

 of the genus Hatteria. The possible extension of the continent southward, 

 and its union for a time with an Antarctic continent, are considered on page 

 737. 



DISTURBANCES AND UPTURNINGS DURING, OR AT THE CLOSE OF, THE TRIASSIC 



AND JURASSIC PERIODS. 



Triassic of the Atlantic border. 



The Triassic areas of the Atlantic border bear evidence of a general 

 upturning, in which the beds were, with small exceptions, raised not into 

 flexures, but into monoclines. The effects of the movements have been 

 briefly stated on page 357, under the subject of mountain-making. Additional 

 facts and illustrations, respecting the disturbed areas, and the orographic 

 results and methods, are here presented. 



The close parallelism between the Triassic areas and the Appalachian 

 chain is one of the great facts to be here noted. It is well seen on the map, 

 page 412, and for Pennsylvania on that of page 730. The general parallel- 

 ism between the strike of the upturned beds and the same course — that is, 

 the trend of the areas — is another important fact. The two are satisfactory 

 evidence that the agency concerned over the Atlantic border was the same 

 for Jurassic time, as for the epoch when the Appalachians were made ; and, 

 it may be added, for all epochs of Eastern Border mountain-making. 



In the Connecticut valley area there was an eastward dip also in the 

 fracture planes, and a westward upthrust along these planes ; and this also 

 was a feature of the Appalachian upturning. These facts imply the action 

 of lateral pressure from the eastward, or the direction of the ocean. 



In the Palisade area passing from New York through New Jersey and 

 Pennsylvania into Virginia, and in the tvestern areas of Virginia and North 

 Carolina, the results of the upturning are in general the reverse of those in 

 the Connecticut valley and in eastern North Carolina. The beds of sandstone 

 and the great fracture-planes, for the most part, dip westward or northwest- 

 ward, and the upthrust along the fracture-planes was southeastward. 



