REVIEW OF THE PERMIAN FOSSILS. 
205 
This is an important fact 1 , and we dwell upon it as a proof, that the most marked 
distinctions between the fossils of succeeding formations cannot always be referred 
to violent physical revolutions ot the surface, by which, as it has been supposed 
one group of animals was annihilated anterior to the creation of another. In the 
previous chapters we have, indeed, demonstrated, that throughout vast regions of 
Russia, the older deposits are most clearly separable from each other by means of 
their respective fossils, although they are all apparently conformable. 
We will now strengthen our conclusions respecting the independence and true 
relations of the Permian system, by some general observations on its organic 
remains, and by showing in a tabular view their distribution, as far as it is known, 
in various parts of Europe. 
Review of the Organic Remains of the Permian System . — Though less copious 
than that of the inferior palaeozoic rocks, the fauna of the Permian System, being 
less known, well merits a detailed examination. It constitutes, in fact, the remnant 
of the earlier creation of animals, the various developments of which we have fol- 
lowed through the three preceding ages ; and exhibits the last of the partial and 
successive alterations which those creatures underwent before their final disappear- 
ance. The dwindling away and extinction of many of the types, produced and 
multiplied in such profusion during the anterior epochs, and the creation of a new 
class of large animals, the Saurians, clearly announce the end of the long palaeo- 
zoic period and the beginning of a new order of zoological conditions. 
I he two greatest revolutions in the extinct organic world are those which sepa- 
rated the palaeozoic from the secondary age, and the latter from the tertiary. 
Viewed as the conclusion of the first of these epochs, the Permian deposits must, 
therefore, excite in the minds of geologists an interest, not inferior to that connected 
with the upper chalk, in displaying a similar apparent termination to a series of 
organic bodies. 
The species which characterize the Zechstein or Magnesian Limestone and the 
Kupfer-schiefer having hitherto been mentioned in a number of detached works 
only, -we have thought it advisable to group them together with our newly-discovered 
forms, in a synoptical table, in which we indicate the authors who have described 
each species, its synonyms, and the beds in which it has been found. 
1 In reference to this generalization, we must, however, bear in mind, that the “ Gres des Vosges,” 
which we have included in the Permian system, has been shown by M. Elie de Beaumont, to have been 
elevated anterior to the accumulation of the “ Gres bigarre ” and Keuper. 
2 E 
