14 
LEA’S DESCRIPTION OF A FOSSIL SAURIAN 
Permian Fossils.” This is the second (b) of his six divisions of the Permian rocks, 
beginning at the top, and is included in the Zechstein of German geologists. He 
considers that the Permian rocks were deposited during the latest division of the 
Protozoic or primary organic period. Those of the Triassic in the earliest division 
of the Deuterozoic period. “ The separation is based on the idea that organic nature 
underwent a marked change at the time the Permian rocks were being deposited. 
This idea invests the fossil remains of this rock with the utmost importance in 
philosophical geology.” 
He gives a very full account of the organic remains of the Permian system, and in 
his views in regard to its relations with the formations above and below it, he does 
not seem to be so decisive as to a well determined separation from the Trias, as most 
geologists of England at the present time. At the same time, he finds a stronger 
relation to the carboniferous series than to the Trias. In regard to the plants, he 
says, “ doubtless a few large groups, and several genera appeared for the first time 
during the early part of this period; but there is nothing to indicate any great 
phytological break between the two widely separated systems—the Carboniferous and 
Triassic,” &c. “ Generically these periods are related to each other; they are, also, 
to a certain extent, specifically connected; it may, therefore, be fairly concluded that 
the Permian Flora did not differ, to any material extent, from either the Carboniferous 
or the Triassic.” In regard to the molluscs, he says, “ they bind together the 
Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic systems. Several species of the Carboniferous 
period continued to live, or were closely represented, in the Permian ; and a few 
appear to have had their existence prolonged into the Triassic. There is a strong 
generic, and a faint specific relation running through the three systems; but taking 
all the classes into consideration, especially the Palliobranchiate, the relation has 
obviously more of a Protozoic than a Deuterozoic character.” (p. xxv.) 
In regard to the Permian fishes, Professor King considers them to be specifically 
distinct from those of the Carboniferous rocks. In its reptilian fauna, he says, as yet 
we cannot form any satisfactory conclusion, as to whether the Permian system is 
more related to the Carboniferous than to the Triassic. “ The occurrence of 
Labyrinthodons and Rhynchosaurs in the Triassic rocks, and, according to the 
determination of Von Meyer, of Labyrinthodont forms (Archigosaurus and Sclero- 
plialus) in the coal measures of Germany, shows that there is a strong reptilian 
connexion between the Carboniferous and Triassic systems.” He considers “on 
hypothetical grounds, we are warranted in anticipating, that future researches will 
establish a more intimate reptilian connexion than at present prevails between these 
systems and the one intermediate to them—the Permian.” His conclusions are that 
the Permian deposits are “co-ordinate with, and intermediate to, the Carboniferous 
and Triassic systems—including them in the Protozoic, rather than in the Deuterozoic 
period.” (p. xxvi.) 
