ISO 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



Germany^ as well as the distinct saurians of these formations. 

 Nevertheless, if it had not been for the vast development of 

 this series in Russia, for its possessing an independent flora 

 and fauna, and for the vv'ant of a term to express a complex 

 series of deposits, occupying a geological situation interme- 

 diate between the carboniferous and triassic systems, the 

 authors would have hesitated to have erected these important 

 rocks into a system. They feel, hov/ever, that they are fully 

 justified in doing so, and they propose to designate the system 

 by the appellation Permian, on account of its extensive dis- 

 tribution in the Government of Perm, and because more of 

 the names applied to subordinate members of the system in 

 other parts of Europe express the aggregate characters of the 

 Russian deposits. The system has been long mineralogically 

 known along the western base of the Ural Mountains, where 

 it a])ounds in copper ores, which are not distributed in veins, 

 but are disseminated through the sandstone and grits, espe- 

 cially in those parts in which vegetables occur, the original 

 plant being often replaced or charged by carbonates and 

 other ores of copper. In the north of Russia the system is 

 feebly exhibited, consisting of only a bed of inconsiderable 

 thickness. Overlying these strata occurs a deposit of green 

 and red marl and sands, destitute apparently of organic re- 

 mains, but occupying a vast region. Whether these marls 

 are the representatives of the triassic system, or belong to the 

 Permian, the authors decline to off'er any opinion, not being 

 provided with that evidence which they consider sufficient. 

 The regular sequence in the ascending order, between the 

 Permian, or the beds last noticed, and the cretaceous series, 

 is partially represented in Russia, many of the deposits con- 

 stituting marked features in the English secondary formations 

 being totally wanting, and others but imperfectly represented. 

 The authors, however, show that the beds between the red 

 and green marls and the cretaceous series are separable into 



