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REVIEW OF THE PERMIAN FOSSILS. 
This inventory of an assemblage of submarine animals, which modern re- 
searches have taught us were about to pass away, has the advantage of enabling us 
to compare the whole Permian fauna with that of the preceding epochs, and also 
the special fauna of this epoch in Russia, with that of the corresponding deposits 
of Western Europe. Under these two points of view, we shall now successively 
consider the subject. 
The total number of Permian species cited in our table, including four or five 
which are doubtful, is about 166. In this estimate, on the other hand, we do not 
reckon a few forms alluded to by some authors, the had state of preservation of which 
or other causes have prevented their being precisely determined. This number is 
really small, when we compare it with that of the fauna of the Carboniferous or 
Devonian epochs, in each of which more than 1000 species have been either 
figured or described. Of the 166 known species, 148 are exclusively characteristic 
of the Permian system, whilst 1 8 only are found in the whole underlying series of 
Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous rocks. If we dissect these numbers, in order 
to deduce the various elements of their composition, we easily discover the charac- 
teristic features which distinguish the Permian from the subjacent Carboniferous 
system. 
The corals, which in the carboniferous epoch amount to more than 100 species, 
are, in the Permian system, reduced to fifteen, and even of such forms three or 
four only are abundant, and these, acording to Mr. Lonsdale, are chiefly species 
of Fenestella 1 . This sound naturalist also informs us, that not one of the Permian 
corals actually examined by him has been found satisfactorily referrible to carboni- 
ferous or older species, though they belong to genera which have a marked palteo- 
zoic character. 
The Crinoidea are extremely scarce, and of the seventy to seventy-five species 
which inhabited the carboniferous seas, one only, the Cyathocrinites planus (Mill.), 
appears to have lived during the Permian epoch. Even this solitary species is ex- 
tremely rare, and we are as yet unacquainted with it in Russia. 
1 Since the two previous chapters were printed, we have been favoured by our valued friend Mr. 
Lonsdale with a corrected list of the Permian corals, founded not only on the examination of all the 
Russian specimens we collected, but also on a rich assemblage of English species submitted to him at our 
request by Mr. King of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The new names in the table at the end of this chapter 
are those of Mr. Lonsdale, and his explanation of the changes he has found it necessary to make in the 
names of previous writers, will be given in Part III. 
