220 
CONCLUSION. 
vegetable life of the same nature as that which prevailed during the Carboniferous 
aera. 6th. The fossil plants (few in number no doubt) which are contained in the 
Kupfer Schiefer and Zechstein of Germany’, being for the most part marine, are 
necessarily very different from land plants of the Permian rocks of Russia.” 
The results of the inquiries of the botanist are therefore completely in accord- 
ance with those of the palaeontologist. They clearly prove that the Permian 
system is the uppermost stage of that long Palaeozoic series, which commencing 
with the lowest Silurian rocks, presents a connected succession of animal and ve- 
getable life, the last traces of which passed away with the termination of the strata 
under review. Until Russia was explored, this upper member of these ancient 
rocks had scarcely afforded a trace of terrestrial plants. Neither in the British 
Isles nor in Germany had there been found more than one or two species of land 
plants in deposits of this age, no one of which has yet been fully identified or de- 
scribed. Now in reference to our Russian species, such of them as had been 
previously alluded to by other writers, were placed by some in the carboniferous 
rocks, by others in the New Red Sandstone 2 . Our sections, however, have shown 
that neither of these views is correct ; and as the Russian plants to which we have 
called attention, occur for the most part in strata distinctly overlying beds contain, 
mg the fossils of the Zechstein, it is clear that certain red sandstones, marls and 
conglomerates, above that rock belong to our Permian group, are wholly distinct 
from the Trias, and are truly Palaeozoic. 
We repeat, therefore, that we have now adduced ample botanical as well as zoo- 
logical and stratigraphical evidence to vindicate the application of the collective 
word Permian, to a succession of strata which had not been previously united 
through their geological relations and organic contents. 
These proofs will, we trust, be considered as still more strongly borne out by 
the grandeur of the phenomena to which we have appealed ; for the Permian de- 
posits of Russia repose upon Carboniferous strata throughout more than two- 
thirds of a basin which has a circumference of not less than 4000 English miles. 
' The species of plants, ten or twelve in number, which have been found in the Kupfer Schiefer or the 
sandy beds associated with the Zechstein in Germany, are chiefly marine fucoids, and have been termed 
Caulerpites. According to M. Adolphe Brongniart, the only terrestrial plants of these German strata are 
the Tnioptens Eckardi (Germar), and a Neuropteris mentioned by Naumann, which not beinn- deter- 
mined is doubtful. 
See a very recent memoir by M. YasikofF, Bull, de Moscou, 1843, part ii. p. 237, in which he refers 
an interesting portion of the Permian rocks described by us upon the Kama, and between that river and 
the Sok, either to the blew Red Sandstone or the Carboniferous Limestone, 
