Ch. XXIII.] 



PERMIAN FLORA. 



463 



According to Sir R. Murchison,* the Permian rocks are composed, 

 m Russia, of white limestone, with gypsum and white salt : and of 

 red and green grits, occasionally with copper-ore ; also magnesian 

 limestones, marlstones, and conglomerates. 



The country of Mansfield, in Thuringia, may be called the classic 

 ground of the Lower New Red, or Magnesian Limestone, or Permian 

 formation, on the Continent. It consists there principally of, first, 

 the Zechstein, corresponding to the upper portion of our English 

 series ; and, secondly, the marl-slate, with fish of species identical 

 vrith those of the bed so called in Durham. This slaty marlstone is 

 richly impregnated with copper-pyrites, for which it is extensively 

 worked. Magnesian limestone, gypsum, and rock-salt occur among 

 the superior strata of this group. At its base lies the Rothliegendes, 

 supposed to correspond with the Inferior or Lower Xew Red Sand- 

 stone, which occupies a similar place in England between the marl- 

 slate and coal. Its local name of " Rothliegendes," red-Iyer, or 

 " Roth-todt-hegendes," red-dead-Iyer, was given by the workmen in 

 the Germau mines from its red color, and because the copper has 

 died out when they reach this rock, which is not metalliferous. It is, 

 in fact, a great deposit of red sandstone and conglomerate, with 

 associated porphpy, basaltic trap, and amygdaloid. 



In the " Kupferschiefer," or marl-slate, a highly organized reptile 

 allied to the living monitor, was found in 1709, which has been 

 named P rotor osaurus, and it remained for a century and a quarter 

 the oldest known fossil reptile, when, at length, in 1844, the Arche- 

 r/osaurus was discovered in the coal of Saarbruch, near Treves. 



Permian Flora. — We learn from the investigations of Colonel Yon 

 Gutbier, that in the Permian rocks of Saxony no less than 60 species 

 of fossil plants have been met with, 40 of which have not yet been 

 found elsewhere. Two or three of these, as Catamites gigas, Sjtie- 



Fis. 508. 



Walchia pintformis, Sternb. Permian, Saxony. (Gutbier, Die Vevsteinerungen des 



permiscben Systemes in Sachsen, vol. ii. pi. x.) 



a. Branch. t>. Twig of tbe same. c. Leaf, magnified. 



* Russia and the Ural Mountains, 1845 ; and Siluria, chap. xii. 1854. 



