§ 18. PERMIAN OF GERMANY AND RUSSIA. 563 



tive locality of these ichthyolites, are to be found in almost 

 every museum in Europe. These fishes, which principally 

 belong to the genera Palceoniscus and Platysomus,* are gene- 

 rally in a contorted state, apparently the effect of violent 

 convulsions attendant on their sudden destruction. They 

 are splendidly invested with copper pyrites, and their scales 

 often have the appearance of burnished gold. The bodies 

 of the vertebras of the spinal column are almost always 

 wanting.^ The appearance of a violent death presented by 

 these Ichthyolites, M. Agassiz considers as entirely decep- 

 tive : and states that the bent and twisted condition of the 

 body is solely attributable to muscular contractions during 

 decomposition after life was extinct.! 



In Russia, the researches of Sir R. Murchison have shown 

 that the Permian system in European Russia, consists of 

 strata identical with the lower group of New Red of England 

 and Germany, and reposes on the carboniferous deposits ; it 

 extends over an area 4,000 miles in circumference ; a space 

 equal to twice the surface of the kingdom of France. 



In North America, as we have already hinted, it seems 

 probable that the lower deposits of the New Red may be 

 found to belong to the Permian group. 



19. Fossils of the Permian System. — The fauna 

 and flora of this formation are invested with peculiar 

 interest, because they present us with the last term of that 

 ancient type of organic life, which prevailed from the ear- 

 liest periods of which we have obtained any evidence of the 

 presence of living things in the waters or upon the surface 

 of our planet. For the two grand revolutions in the 

 organic w^orld, as demonstrated by fossil remains, are un- 

 questionably those which separated the palaeozoic ages from 

 the secondary, and the latter from the tertiary. There 

 are no less than 166 species of fossil plants and animals 



* Medals, vol. ii. p. 633. + Ibid. p. 634. 



% Eecherches sur les Poissons Fossiles, tome ii. p. 70. 



VOL. II. P P 



