34 GEOLOGY. 



England shows that the sea which overspread Germany did not cover 

 England, and the conformity of the Upper Trias with the Lower in 

 the latter country leads to the inference that the time equivalent of 

 the Muschelkalk is included in one or both of these divisions. The 

 uppermost (marine) division of the system in England (the Rhaetic) 

 corresponds in a general way with the upper part of the Keuper (also 

 marine) in Germany. 



In the two countries the Triassic system has the following points 

 in common: (1) The dominant color is red; in England, indeed, the 

 system is commonly known as the New Red Sandstone system, though 

 the Permian was formerly included under this term ; (2) in both countries 

 the formations are poor in fossils; (3) in both, gypsum and salt are 

 present. In England the salt occurs in workable, lens-shaped beds, 

 sometimes 200 or 300 feet in thickness. The gypsum, in the white 

 amorphous form of alabaster, also occurs in workable quantity in 

 some parts of England. (4) In both countries, the strata bear abun- 

 dant marks of shallow-water or subaerial origin, such as footprints of 

 land animals, cross-bedding, and rapid changes laterally in the com- 

 position of the beds. 



The Upper Trias of England is rather remarkable for containing 

 a large amount of dolomitic conglomerate. This, as will be remem- 

 bered, is locally one of the characteristics of the Newark series in the 

 eastern part of the United States. In England, however, the origin 

 of the conglomerate presents no serious problem, for it lies against the 

 limestone cliffs from which its materials were derived. 



Sweden and Russia. — In southern Sweden, where the Trias has 

 slight representation, it contains coal, showing that the same general 

 conditions (shallow lakes, marshes, etc.) prevailed in the north as in 

 the rest of western Europe. The Trias of Sweden was probably once 

 continuous with that of Germany, and may still be, for borings have 

 shown that it underlies various parts of the North German lowland. 

 The Trias of most of Russia consists of highly-colored beds (mainly 

 red) which are poor in fossils. They appear to belong to the non- 

 marine phase of the system. No contemporaneous igneous rocks are 

 known in the Triassic phase of the system. 



The character and the distribution of the Triassic beds of northern 

 and western Europe have led to the inference that the Triassic beds 

 of Britain were accumulated in great inland basins which 



