In this Triassic time the climate appears to have been rather dry, for in it we have many extensive deposits of salt formed by the evaporation of closed lakes, of seas, such as are now forming on the bottom of the Dead Sea, and the Great Salt Lake of Utah, and a hundred or more other similar basins of the present day.
In the sea animals of this time we find many changes. Already some of the giant lizard-like animals, which first took shape on the land, are becoming swimming-animals. They changed their feet to paddles, which, with the help of a flattened tail, force them through the water.
The fishes on which these great swimming lizards preyed are more like the fishes of our present day than they were before. The trilobites are gone, and of the crinoids only a remnant is left. Most of the corals of the earlier days have disappeared, but the mollusks have not changed more than they did at several different times in the earliest stages of the earth's history.
After the Trias comes a long succession of ages in which the life of the world is steadily advancing to higher and higher planes; but for a long time there is no such startling change as that which came in the passage from the coal series of rocks to the Trias. This long set of periods is known to geologists as the age of reptiles. It is well named, for the kindred of the lizards then had the control of the land. There were then none of our large fish to dispute their control, so they shaped themselves to suit all the occupations that could give them a chance for a living. Some remained beasts of prey like our alligators, but grew to larger size; some took to eating the plants, and came to walk on their four legs as our ordinary beasts do, no longer dragging themselves on their bellies as do the lizard and alligator, their lower kindred. Others became flying creatures like our bats, only vastly larger, often with a spread of wing of fifteen or twenty feet. Yet others, even as strangely shaped, dwelt with the sharks in the sea.
In this time of the earth's history we have the first bird-like forms. They were feathered creatures, with bills carrying true teeth, and with strong wings; but they were reptiles in many features, having long, pointed tails such as none of our existing birds have. They show us that the birds are the descendants of reptiles, coming off from them as a branch does from the parent tree. The tortoises began in this series of rocks. At first they are marine or swimming forms, the box-turtles coming later. Here too begin many of the higher insects. Creatures like moths and bees appear, and the forests are enlivened with all the important kinds of insects, though the species were very different from those now living.
In the age of reptiles the plants have made a considerable advance. Palms are plenty; forms akin to our pines and firs abound, and the old flowerless group of ferns begins to shrink in size, and no longer spreads its feathery foliage over all the land as before. Still there were none of our common broad-leaved trees; the world had not yet known the oaks, birches, maples, or any of our hard-wood trees that lose their leaves in autumn; nor were the flowering plants, those with gay blossoms, yet on the earth. The woods and fields were doubtless fresh and green, but they wanted the grace of blossoms, plants, and singing-birds. None of the animals could have had the social qualities or the finer instincts that are so common among animals of the present day. There were probably no social animals like our ants and bees, no merry singing creatures; probably no forms that went in herds. Life was a dull round of uncared-for birth, cruel self-seeking, and of death. The animals at best were clumsy, poorly-endowed creatures, with hardly more intelligence than our alligators.