mitrchiso:n' — on the new terat dtas. 
9 
irrespective, however, of the question of whether tliere are or are not 
localities in Germany Avhere 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 tlie other, to see the inapplicability of the 
word "Dyas" to this group. 
^sear the capital of Saxony, Dr. Geinitz himself pointed out to 
me that the Eothliegende 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 otiier places, constitute a Trias. 
Again, Beyrich, in his Map of Lower Silesia,* has divided the vast 
Pothliegende of those mountains into Lower and L^pper, the two 
embracing eight 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 Uj)pern)ost 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 Jiussia, 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 ichoJe the Lower Kew 
Eed Sandstone (Kothe-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 Eussia over which such 
Permian rocks ranged, I added: — "Of the fossils of this system, 
some undescribed species of Proditcti 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 Ked Sandstone or 
Trias and the Coal-measures. Hence it is that I have ventured to 
consider this series as worthy of being regarded as a system." J 
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, ' 2iid edit. p. 343. 
t Phil. Mag. xix. p. 419. 
X In my last edition of ' Silnria' I hare spoken of the Permian as the upper- 
most Palaeozoic group, but have not deemed it a system by comparison with the 
vast deposits of Carboniferous, Devonian, and Sihirian age. 
VOL. T. C 
