VI. 
THE GEOLOGICAL MIDDLE AGE. 
I SHALL pass lightly over the Permian and 
Triassic epochs, as being more nearly related 
in their organic forms to the Carboniferous epoch, 
with which we are already somewhat familiar, 
while in those next in succession, the Jurassic 
and Cretaceous epochs, the later conditions of 
animal life begin to be already foreshadowed. 
But though less significant for us in the present 
stage of our discussion, it must not be supposed 
that the Permian and Triassic epochs were unim- 
portant in the physical and organic history of 
Europe. A glance at any geological map of 
Europe will show the reader how the Belgian 
island stretched gradually in a southwesterly 
direction during the Permian epoch, approaching 
the coast of France by slowly increasing accumu- 
lations, and thus filling the Burgundian channel ; 
a wide border of Permian deposits around the 
coal-field of Great Britain marks the increase of 
this region also during the same time, and a very 
extensive tract of a like character is to be seen in 
