The primordial age is followed by a much shorter division, the _paleozoic_ or Primary age. It is divided into four long periods, the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. The Silurian strata are particularly interesting because they contain the first fossil traces of vertebrates—teeth and scales of Selachii ( _Palæodus_) in the lower, and Ganoids ( _Pteraspis_) in the upper Silurian. During the Devonian period the “old red sandstone” was formed; during the Carboniferous period were deposited the vast coal-measures that yield us our chief combustive material; in the Permian (or the Dyas), in fine, the new red sandstone, the Zechstein (magnesian limestone), and the Kupferschiefer (marl-slate) were formed. The collective depth of these strata is put at 40,000 to 45,000 feet. In any case, the paleozoic age, taken as a whole, was much shorter than the preceding and much longer than the subsequent periods. The strata that were deposited during this primary epoch contain a large number of fossils; besides the invertebrate species there are a good many vertebrates, and the fishes preponderate. There were so many fishes, especially primitive fishes (of the shark type) and plated fishes, during the Devonian, and also during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, that we may describe the whole paleozoic period as “the age of fishes.” Among the paleozoic plated fishes or Ganoids the Crossopterygii and the Ctenodipterina (dipneusts) are of great importance. During this period some of the fishes began to adapt themselves to living on land, and so gave rise to the class of the amphibia. We find in the Carboniferous period fossilised remains of five-toed amphibia, the oldest terrestrial, air-breathing vertebrates. These amphibia increase in variety in the Permian epoch. Towards the close of it we find the first Amniotes, the ancestors of the three higher classes of Vertebrates. These are lizard-like animals; the first to be discovered was the _Proterosaurus,_ from the marl at Eisenach. The rise of the earliest Amniotes, among which must have been the common ancestor of the reptiles, birds, and mammals, is put back towards the close of the paleozoic age by the discovery of these reptile remains. The ancestors of our race during this period were at first represented by true fishes, then by dipneusts and amphibia, and finally by the earliest Amniotes, or the Protamniotes.