MUECtllSOiN" — OS^ THE 3^EW TERM DYA3. 



9 



irrespective, however, of the question of whether there are or are not 

 localities in Germany where the Zechstein passes upwards into a red 

 rock, which forms no true part of the Bunter Saudstein of the Trias, 

 we have only to look to the environs of Dresden, on the one hand, 

 and to Lower Silesia on the other, to see the inapplicability of the 

 word " Dyas " to this group. 



Near the capital of Saxony, Dr. Geinitz himself pointed out to 

 me that the Rothliegende is there divided into two very dissimilar 

 parts ; and these, if added to the limestone which is there inter- 

 polated, or to the true Zechstein of other places, constitute a Trias. 

 Again, Beyrich, in his Map of Lower Silesia,* has divided the vast 

 Eothliegende of those mountains into Lower and Upper, the two 

 embracing eigJit subdivisions according to that author. 



In repeating, then, that the word " Permian" was not originally 

 proposed with the view of affixing to this natural group any number 

 of component parts, but simply as a convenient short term to define 

 the UppeiDiost Palaeozoic group, I refer all geologists to the very 

 words I used in the year 1841, when the name was first suggested. 

 In speaking of the structure of Pussia, I thus wrote: — "The Car- 

 boniferous system is surmounted to the east of the Volga by a vast 

 series of beds of marls, schists, limestones, sandstones, and conglo- 

 merates, to which I propose to give the name of ' Permian System,' 

 because, although this series represents as a whole the Lower New 

 Ked Sandstone (Rothe-todte-liegende) and the Magnesian Limestone 

 or Zechstein, yet it cannot be classed exactly, whether by the suc- 

 cession of the strata or their contents, with either of the German or 

 British subdivisions of this age."t 



After pointing to the governments of Russia over which such 

 Permian rocks ranged, I added: — "Of the fossils of this system, 

 some undescribed species of JProducti might seem to connect the 

 Permian with the Carboniferous era ; and other shells, together with 

 fishes and saurians, link it more closely to the period of the Zech- 

 stein, whilst its peculiar plants appear to constitute a Plora of a 

 type intermediate between the epochs of the New Eed Sandstone or 

 Trias and the Coal-measures. Hence it is that I have ventured to 

 consider this series aa worthy of being regarded as a system."]; 



In subsequent years, having personally examined this group in 

 the typical tracts of Germany as well as of Britain, I felt more than 

 ever assured that, from the great local variations of mineral succes- 

 sion of the group, the word "Permian," which might apply to any 

 number of mineral subdivisions, was the most comprehensive and 

 best term which could be used, the more so as it was in harmony 

 with the principle on which the term Silurian had been adopted. 



Apart from the question of the substitution of the new word 



* See also 'Siluria, ' 2nd edit. p. 343. 

 t PM. Mag. xix. p. 419. 



;|; In my last edition of ' Siluria' I liare spoken of the Permian as the iijDper- 

 most Palgeozoic group, but have not deemed it a system by comparison with the 

 vast deposits of Carboniferous, Devonian, and Silurian age. 



YOL. V. C 



