218 
REVIEW OF THE PERMIAN FOSSILS. 
deficiency of adequate identification and description, than to the non-existence 
of such forms, that the poverty of our list is due. In proof of this it may be stated, 
that we have visited one of the chief localities only, Kargala, where the remains of 
fishes are associated with those of thecodont Saurians, whilst we inspected other 
specimens from near Menselinsk and from the district of Bielebei, as well as from 
various places (some of the best of which are now deposited in the Museum of the 
School of Mines), which convinced us, that many species have already been 
discovered in true Permian strata 1 . On this subject, however, we must refer to 
the description preparing by Professor Agassiz and which has not yet reached us, 
of the few fragments of fishes of which we obtained possession. (See Part III.) 
Lastly, we repeat, that there appears in Russia, as well as through Western 
Europe, in the deposits of which we now treat, a class of large and peculiar ver- 
tebrata as yet unknown in older rocks ; and this striking coincidence between the 
eastern and western extremities of a great continent is one of the best proofs, that 
the law's, which in ancient epochs, presided over the first appearance of new classes 
of animals, exercised a simultaneous influence over vast territories, if not over 
the whole surface of the globe. 
This synchronous development of the chief phenomena of organic nature ap- 
pears to us to afford additional demonstration of the contemporaneity of the deposits 
which occupy so large a portion of the surface of Russia, and which we have 
termed Permian, with those strata never previously grouped together upon geolo- 
gical and zoological evidences ; viz. the Rothe-todte-liegende, Kupfer Schiefer, 
Zechstein, or Magnesian Limestone, and the lower part of the Bunter Sandstein, 
or Gres bigarre (Grbs Vosgien) of M. Elie de Beaumont. The number of Russian 
species identical with those of Western Europe is, indeed, pretty nearly what we 
might expect to meet with in this remote portion of Europe, where these deposits, 
not separated from each other by chains of older rocks, or interfered with by any 
ridges of intrusive character, constitute the most enormous basin ever yet described 
by geologists, the uniformity of which may be well explained, by its having been 
accumulated in a sea of such very large dimensions. 
General remarks on the Permian Flora . — In the preceding pages we have more 
1 Fossil fishes of more than one species were also procured by Baron Humboldt and his associates 
Rose and Ehrenberg, from the copper sands of Verchni-Moulinsk near Perm, and they are deposited in 
the Royal Museum of Berlin, where we inspected them. They are mentioned by M. G. Rose in the 
description of the journey of Baron Humboldt, vol. i. p. 117, and will be described by Dr. Girard of Berlin. 
One of them seemed to us to be not very distant from Palceoniscus catopterus, Ag. 
