Chap. XIII.] 
OEIGIN OF THE TEEM PEEMIAN. 
309 
ferous epoch ; whilst they are almost wholly dissimilar to those of the next 
succeeding period, the Trias. 
The strata which were accumulated immediately after the great deposits 
of Coal have been termed in England Lower New Red Sandstone, Marl- 
slate, Magnesian Limestone, &c. Similar rocks have long been known 
in Germany under the names of Roth-todt-liegende, Kupfer-Schiefer, 
Zechstein, &c. Having become satisfied that all these strata, so different 
in mineral character, constituted one natural geological group only, clearly 
distinguished from the Carboniferous series beneath, and, on account 
of its organic contents, must be entirely separated from all formations 
above, in 1841* I proposed to my associates de Yerneuil and von Keyser- 
ling, when we were in Russia, that these rocks should receive the name of 
( Permian,' a term taken from an extensive region which composed the an- 
cient kingdom of Permia, of which the extensive Government of Perm 
forms a part. To that vast tract the illustrious Humboldt particularly 
called our attention when M. de Verneuil and myself were about to revisit 
Russia ; and in it we found all the characteristic features of this inde- 
pendent assemblage developed on a very grand scale. 
After two explorations of Russia, I reexamined when alone (1844) those 
portions of Germany where the Zechstein and its associated strata, under- 
lying as well as overlying, are best displayed ; and, by placing these in 
parallel with the Russian and English rocks, my views were confirmed ; 
and thus all the deposits above mentioned were included under the term 
' Permian.' The value of this euphonial name, for a series of strata com- 
posing one natural group, soon became so obvious that, proposed in 1841, 
it has since been adopted by nearly all geologists of different nations. 
In Germany, where the Roth-todt-liegende, Kupfer-Schiefer, and Zech- 
stein had long had their headquarters, and where their characters had 
been described by numerous geologists, from the days of Werner and 
Schlotheim to those of the great geologist Leopold von Buch, whose loss 
we deplore, these rocks have been recognized in the works of Naumann of 
Leipsic, of Geinitz and Gutbier of Dresden, and of Goppert of Breslau, as 
the ' Permische System ' f . 
In France, the late M. Alcide d'Orbigny, in his systematic work on Pa- 
laeontology and other authors, have given currency to a name which 
would, indeed, have had little or no value without the close palseontological 
comparisons of my colleagues de Yerneuil and von Keyserling, as worked 
out with me in the easternmost regions of Russia-in-Europe. 
* The term was first proposed in a letter ad- the introduction of a new name founded upon 
dressed by me at Moscow to the venerable and ac- a local binary division which, though good in 
complished Eussian palaeontologist Dr. Fischer, Saxony, is inapplicable to many other countries, 
October 1841- Bronn und Leonhard's Jahrbuch, in several of which the separation is tripartite. 
1841, and Phil. Mag. vol. xix. p. 417. In North America (see Chap, xviii.) it is indeed a 
t See G-einitz and Gutbier, ' Permische System Monas. I am happy to observe that the mass of 
in Sachsen,' 1848. Since the last edition of this geologists prefer the simpler geographical name 
work was issued, my friend Professor Geinitz de- ' Permian,' which, like ' Silurian,' involves no 
serted the name Permian which he had adopted, theory. 
and, following M. Desor, applied the name of J See Cours e'le'mentaire de Pal. et Ge'ol. Strat., 
Dyas to this system. I have elsewhere resisted par Alcide d'Orbigny, vol. ii. p. 370. 
