PERMIAN ROCKS OF THE CONTINENT. 
391 
with the Magnesian Limestone by Professor Sedgwick, as be¬ 
ing nearly co-extensive with it in geographical range, though 
their relations are very obscure. But the principal develop¬ 
ment of Lower Permian is, as we have seen by Mr. Hull’s 
table, p. 386, in the northwest, where the Penrith sandstone, 
as it has been called, and the associated breccias and purple 
shales are estimated by Professor Harkness to attain a thick¬ 
ness of 3000 feet. Organic remains are generally wanting, 
but the leaves and wood of coniferous plants, and in one case 
a cone, have been found. Also in the purple marls of Corn¬ 
cockle Muir near Dumfries, very distinct ibot-prints of rep¬ 
tiles occur, originally referred to the Trias, but shown by 
Mr. Binney in 1856 to be Permian. No bones of the animals 
which they represent have yet been discovered. 
Angular Breccias in Lower Permian ,—A striking feature 
in these beds is the occasional occurrence, especially at the 
base of the formation, of angular and sometimes rounded 
fragments of Carboniferous and older rocks of the adjoining 
districts being included in a paste of red marl. Some of the 
angular masses are of huge size. 
In the central and southern counties, where the Middle 
Permian or Magnesian Limestone is wanting, it is difficult to 
separate the upper and lower sandstones, and Mr. Hull is of 
opinion that- the patches of this formation found here and 
there in Worcestershire, Shropshire, and other counties may 
have been deposited in a sea separated from the northern 
basin by a barrier of Carboniferous rocks running east and 
west, and now concealed under the Triassic strata of Chesh- 
ire.‘ Similar breccias to those before described are found 
in the more southern counties last mentioned, where their 
appearance is rendered more striking by the marked contrast 
they present to the beds of well-rolled and rounded pebbles 
of the Trias occupying a large area in the same region. 
Professor Ramsay refers the angular form and large size 
of the fragments composing these breccias to the action of 
floating ice in the sea. These masses of angular rock, some 
of them weighing more than half a ton, and lying confusedly 
in a red, unstratified marl, like stones in boulder-drift, are in 
some cases polished, striated, and furrowed like erratic blocks 
in the moraine of a glacier. They can be shown in some 
cases to have travelled from the parent rocks, thirty or more 
miles distant, and yet not to have lost their angular shape."^ 
Permian Rocks of the Continent. —Germany is the classic 
ground of the Magnesian Limestone now called Permian. 
* Ramsay, Quart. Geol. Journ., 1855 ; and Lyell, Principles of Geology, 
vol. i., p. 223, 10th edit. 
