436 THE PERMIAN PERIOD 



genera and 34 species have been found in these beds. The order 

 continues up into the Trias, where it becomes exceedingly diversi- 

 fied and more anomalous than ever, but is not known from any 

 later period. 



Examples of the Texas Theromorphs are Pantylus, Bolosaurus, 

 Diadectes, Empedodes, etc. 



The Permian of the Southern Hemisphere 



The Permian has in the Southern Hemisphere a very remark- 

 able and very uniform development, and brings up some prob- 

 lems of the greatest interest. In peninsular India, South Africa, 

 Australia, and South America the same phenomena are repeated, 

 phenomena which have not been satisfactorily explained. 



The formation is particularly well developed in Australia, 

 occurring from Tasmania to Queensland, but is best known in 

 Victoria and New South Wales, where these beds cover many 

 hundreds of square miles. The strata called " Permo-Carbonifer- 

 ous " are more than 2000 feet thick, and in them occur numerous 

 beds of boulders of all sizes, some of them weighing many tons. 

 Many of these boulders have been transported long distances 

 from their parent outcrops, and are of angular shape and often 

 plainly scratched and scored. The boulders are held together by 

 aqueous deposits, sand, or mud, and fossiliferous marine strata 

 are associated with them. In one locality are two such marine 

 formations, each with several boulder beds, and between them 

 are intercalated 230 feet of coal measures, carrying from twenty 

 to forty feet of coal seams. The pavement of older rocks, upon 

 which the boulder-bearing series is laid down, is of different ages 

 in different places, but very frequently this pavement is grooved 

 and polished, with the formation of roches moutonnees, as if by 

 the passage of a glacier. 



India has a similar series of deposits, which, however, are not 

 marine, but were laid down in an inland sea, apparently of fresh 

 water. South of the Himalayas is found, resting upon a founda- 

 tion of metamorphic rocks, a great mass of sandstones and shales, 



