630 GEOLOGY. 



easily worked. The origin of the copper has been referred to sub- 

 marine mineral springs, which have even been supposed to have poisoned 

 the waters and so to have destroyed the organisms in them, the decay 

 of whose remains gave rise to precipitating agents. More in the natural 

 order of things, the ore has been referred to the leaching of igneous 

 and other rocks by surface-waters tributary to the basin in which 

 the deposit took place, the precipitation of the ore being assigned to 

 the organic agencies common to inhabited waters. Such an explana- 

 tion gains in plausibility from the fact that the area where the copper 

 occurs appears to have been a somewhat enclosed basin, rather than 

 the open sea. The ores are best developed in the vicinity of faults, 

 which indicates that they are, in part at least, of secondary origin. 

 The singular fact that the Permian of Texas, as well as that of Europe, 

 contains copper ores in similar relations, has been referred to. 



The Upper Permian of central and western Europe contains the 

 thickest salt-beds known in any part of the earth. Near Berlin, one 

 of these salt-beds has been penetrated to the depth of about 4000 feet, 

 and its bottom has not been reached. In addition to common salt, 

 salts of potash and magnesium were locally (Stassfurt) deposited in 

 such quantity as to be commercially valuable. The world's supply 

 of potassium salts, with the exception of saltpetre, comes from these 

 beds. 1 Like the rock salt, these salts probably represent precipitates 

 from the waters of inclosed basins under special conditions. 



The Upper Permian of eastern Europe is largely of non-marine 

 origin, as shown by the salt, gypsum, etc., which it contains. Marine 

 fossils are, however, not wanting, — are indeed rather more common 

 than in the Zechstein farther west. Over wide areas, the beds are 

 impregnated with copper. The flora is of a type (Glossopteris) not 

 well developed elsewhere in Europe, but prevalent in the Permian or 

 Permo-Carboniferous of Africa and Australia. 2 . 



The Permian system is present in Spitzbergen, where it is wholly 

 marine. The fossils are more closely allied to those of the north Pacific 

 than to those of Russia and India, as if there were a boreal marine 

 province. 3 



General. — On the whole, the Permian system of Europe possesses 



1 Kayser, Geologische Formationskunde, p. 250. 



2 Amalitzky, Review of article by, Geol. Mag., 1901, p. 231 



3 De Lapparent, p. 986. 



