| Fig. 22. | Fig. 23. |
| Fig. 24. | Fig. 25. |
The Lepidodendron (scale-covered tree) ([Fig. 25]) is the fossil which most nearly resembled in general appearance our present forest trees. Specimens are found four feet in diameter and seventy feet in height. In botanical characters it resembled, in some respects, the trailing club-mosses, while in others it was very similar to the Norfolk Island pine.
The Calamite ([Fig. 26]) was a plant resembling, in its jointed and striated surface, the equisetum (rush), but was sometimes twelve inches in diameter.
The carboniferous formation exists more or less abundantly in all the great divisions of the earth. It occurs in nearly all of the countries of Europe. The largest deposits known are, however, in the United States; especially in the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and in Ohio.
4. The New Red Sandstone.—The lower division of this formation, called the Permian system, consists of a thick mass of sandstones, generally of a red color, with occasional alternations of argillaceous rock, succeeded by a series of magnesian limestones. The upper division, or Triassic system, is composed of a red conglomerate, a limestone which has received the name of Muschelkalk (shelly limestone), and a series of variegated marls and sandstones.
The ores of copper are found, to considerable extent, in this formation. The rich copper mines of Germany are in the magnesian limestone, or, as it is there called, Zechstein (minestone). The Lake Superior copper mines occur in a red sandstone formation, which will probably be found to belong to this system.
The salt-beds, salt springs, and beds of gypsum, are so, generally found in this rock in England, that it has been called by the English geologists the “saliferous system.” It is, however, found that in other countries these minerals occur in equal abundance in formations of an earlier and later date.