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i 
758 STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY.  [Boox VI. _ 
fishes (Palzoniscus), and labyrinthodonts occur, but some interstratified 
bands yield Productus Cancrini and other marine shells. The rocks are 
over wide regions impregnated with copper ores. The upper half of the 
series consists of clays, marls, limestones, gypsum, and rock-salt, with 
numerous marine mollusca like those of the Zechstein (Productus Canerini, — 
P. horridus, Camarophoria Schlotheimi), but with intercalated bands 
containing land-plants. It would therefore appear that terrestrial and 
marine conditions must have frequently alternated in Hastern Europe 
during the deposition of the Permian system of that region. 
France.—On the east of France, and stretching intermittently 
northwards along the flanks of the Vosges, and eastwards into the Black 
Forest, the Permian system is represented by two massive formations, a 
lower group of red sandstones, clays,'and conglomerates 400 to 500 feet 
thick, equivalent to the Rothliegende, and an upper group composed of 
pebbly felspathic sandstone (Grés des Vosges) with vegetable impressions. 
As already stated, it is probable that the strata overlying the highest 
coal-measures in some of the numerous basins scattered over the central 
tracts of France should be referred to the Permian system. ‘The most. 
remarkable of these tracts yet explored is that of Autun, in which a mass of 
sandstones, conglomerates, and shale, often abundantly bituminous, occurs, 
of unknown, but of great thickness, for a portion of it was bored through 
to a depth of 410 metres (1345 feet). It contains a bed of magnesian 
limestone two feet thick. It is specially characterized by its fishes and 
the remarkable series of reptilian remains described by M. Gaudry.? 
North America.—The Permian system is hardly represented at all in 
this part of the globe. In Kansas certain red and green clays, sandstones, - 
limestones, conglomerates, and beds of gypsum lie conformably on the 
Carboniferous system, and contain a few genera and species of molluses 
(Bakevellia, Myalina, &c.) which occur in the European Permian rocks. It — 
has recently been urged, however, that the upper part of the Appalachian 
coal-field should be regarded as belonging to the Permian system. These 
strata, termed the “‘ Upper Barren Measures,” are upwards of 1000 feet 
thick. At their base lies a massive conglomeratic sandstone, above which 
come sandstones, shales, and limestones, with thin coals, the whole becom- 
ing very red towards the top. Professors W. M. Fontaine and J. C. 
White have shown that out of 107 plants examined by them from these 
strata 22 are common to the true Pennsylvanian Coal-measures and 28 to 
the Permian rocks of Europe ; that even where the species are distinct 
they are closely allied to known Permian forms; that the ordinary Coal- 
measure flora is but poorly represented in the ‘“‘ Barren Measures,” while 
on the other hand vegetable types appear of a distinctly later time, forms 
of Pecopteris, Callipteridium, and Saportea foreshadowing characteristic 
plants of the Jurassic period. ‘These authors likewise point to the in-— 
dications furnished by the strata themselves of important changes in the 
physical condition of the American area, and to the remarkable paucity of — 
animal life in these beds as in the red Permian rocks of Europe. ‘The 
evidence at present before us seems certainly in favour of regarding the 
upper part of the Appalachian coal-fields as representing the reptiliferous 
beds overlying the Coal-measures at Autun and their equivalents.? 
* Delafond, Bull. Soc. Geol. France, iv. (8e sér.), p. 727. Gaudry, Op. cit, vii. 
(3e sér.), p. 62. 
* “On the Permian or Upper Carboniferous Flora of W. Virginia and §. W. Pennsyl- 
vania,” Second Geol. Surv. Penn. Report, p.p. 1880. 
