138 
THE PERMIAN SYSTEM DEFINED. 
salt and gypsum, which abound in other parts of the region, have induced the 
belief, that these deposits belonged to the New Red Sandstone or Trias. Long 
ago, indeed, the German miners, who first developed the value of the copper ores 
which are so widely distributed through the sands and grits of Perm and Oren- 
burg, observed an analogy between those beds and the “ Kupfer schiefer ” with 
which they were familiar, as well as between the associated Russian shelly lime- 
stones and their own “ Zechstein V’ These analogies, however, were little men- 
tioned among geologists, and were forgotten with the lapse of years. The fossils, 
indeed, had never been compared, and recently Professor Kutorga, grounding his 
opinion on the character of the plants, had referred the beds in which they are 
contained to the true carboniferous sera. 
Such was the state of the question when we entered upon the survey of Russia 
To arrive, therefore, at a sound conclusion respecting the age of these rocks, it be- 
came essential to traverse, as far as possible, the countries over which they extended, 
and compare the phenomena which had led to such contradictory opinions. The 
result has been, that though these deposits are of very varied mineral aspect, and 
consist of grits, sandstones, marls, conglomerates and limestone, sometimes in- 
closing great masses of gypsum and rock-salt, and are also much impregnated with 
copper, and occasionally with sulphur, yet the whole group is characterized by one 
type only of animal and vegetable life. 
Convincing ourselves in the field, that these strata were so distinguished as to 
constitute a system, connected with the carboniferous rocks on the one hand, and 
independent of the Trias on the other, we ventured to designate them by a geogra- 
phical term, derived from the ancient kingdom of Permia, within and around 
whose precincts the necessary evidences had been obtained. 
With the highest respect for the labours of German geologists upon the Zech- 
stein, and for the researches of those authors who have placed the Magnesian 
Limestone of England on the same parallel, we are convinced, that neither in Ger- 
many nor in Great Britain do the same accumulative proofs exist, to establish the 
independence of a geological system. If mineral characters be appealed to, no 
German writer will contend, that the thin course of “ Kupfer schiefer ” is of like 
importance with the numerous strata, which in Russia constitute many bands of 
1 When we examined this tract we were quite unaware that any German miner had compared its 
limestones with the Zechstein, and we only became acquainted with the circumstance through M A 
Erman, when he visited England in 1842. 
