The geological age of the igneous rocks now to be referred to depends upon the particular place in the geological record to which we assign the remarkable breccias and sandstones with which they are associated. By many geologists who have been unable to recognize any true break in the red rocks from their base up to the bottom of the Lias, these strata have been grouped as one great series referable to the "New Red Sandstone" or Trias. This is the classification adopted on the one-inch maps of the Geological Survey. On the other hand, various able observers have pointed out the close resemblance of the coarse and fine breccias at the bottom of the series to recognized Permian deposits in the centre of England and to parts of the typical Rothliegende of Germany. I need only refer to the strongly expressed views of Murchison, in which, as he stated in his _Siluria_, he "entirely agreed with Conybeare and Buckland, who, after a journey in Germany in 1816, distinctly identified the Heavytree conglomerate, near Exeter, with the Rothliegende of the Germans."[104] In the absence of any fossil evidence, we have only lithological characters and sequence to guide us, and though the known facts hardly warrant a very positive opinion, my inclination is to regard these red Devonshire breccias as probably Permian, and to follow Murchison in looking upon their associated igneous masses as furnishing additional reason for assigning them to that particular geological platform.[105] [Footnote 104: _Siluria_, 4th edit. (1867), p. 333. See also Berger, _Trans. Geol. Soc._ vol. i. (1811), pp. 98-102; Conybeare and Phillips, _Geology of England and Wales_, p. 313, footnote; De la Beche, _Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset_ (1839), chap. vii. p. 193. Messrs. Hull and Irving (_Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._ vol. xlviii. 1892, pp. 60, 68) have more recently discussed the subject, and follow the view of Murchison.] [Footnote 105: Murchison cogently argued that as no signs of volcanic activity were known in the Trias, but were abundant in the Permian system, the Devonshire rocks might be regarded as appertaining to the older series, _op. cit._ Triassic volcanic rocks, however, are now well known on the Continent.]