TERTIARY. 151 TERTULLIAN. strictly bplonging to an order, from tertius, third, from t'lrs. tlnei>). A class in the Roman Catliolic Cluircli. who. without entering into the seclusion of a monastery, aspire to practice as far as pos- sible in oriliniiry life the counsels of perfection laid down in the Gospel. Yhatever earlier traces of this institution may be observable, there is no dispute that it was' under the organizations founded by Saint Francis and Saint Dominic that it reached its full development. The rules for tertiarii'S. such as they have since substan- tially been maintained, were made pulilic in 1221. The intending members must restore all ill- gotten goods, must renounce all evil practices, and abandon all feuds and enmities with their neighbors. Wives cannot be received without the consent of their husbands. The obligation of a tertiary, once accepted, is irrevocable, unless the party should be released, or should enter into a more strict religious life. The members are required to renounce luxury: they must fre- quent the sacraments; hear mass, if possible, daily; observe the fasts of the Church, as well as certain special austerities; cultivate charity toward all, with special obligations toward needy, sick, or afflicted brethren ; and practice with more than common fervor the great Chris- tian virtues. It is to be observed, however, that none of these otiligations were supposed to bind the members under pain of mortal sin. Consult Adderlv and Masson. Third Ordeis (London, 1002)." TERTIARY SYSTEM. A term applied in geology" to the gnjuji of rocks included between the Cretaceous ami Quaternary systems. It is one of the two periods constituting the Ceno- zoie era. the Quaternary being the other period. The term Tertiary was first suggested when it was considered that all strata were divisible into three groups, primary, secondary, and ter- tiary. The first two have been replaced in most localities by other names, but the third is still used, although not with its original signiiicance. The Tertiary is one of the most interesting periods of geological histor.y, presenting most complete sections and a great alrandance of or- ganic remains, and yet there has been muoh dif iiculty in classifying its diiTerent meml]er3 cor- rectl,v. The rocks are mostl.v unconsolidated and have rarely been laid down over great areas, so that in the United States, alone, there are no less than three or four separate regions of Ter- tiary rocks, in each of which a different series of subdivisions has to be adopted. The follow- in,g classification of the American Tertiary is that compilcil by W. H. Call: Plioeonp serips Miocene series rt,. „ .^ rrpper orriiipola staece Oligoeeiie series | ^l^'^.^^ ^^ Vicksbtirg stage {Jackson stape Claiborrip staee riiickasaw stage Midway stage These main epochs and .stages are recognized in all the Tertiary areas of the United States, of which there are four, viz. the Pacific Coast, Western interior, Atlantic Coast, and Gulf States. The section in the last-mentioned area is taken as the t,vpe. At the end of the Cretaceous period a great topographic revolution took place in many parts of the world, and at that time the American continent had practically received its present form. The marine Tertiary deposits arc found, therefore, chielly along the liordcrs of the con- tinent, while the interior areas are of fresh- water formation, or jjcrhaps in part a>olian <le- posits, ilany of the liighest monytain ranges of the world, such as the Alps, Atlas, Caiu'asus, and Himalayas, were uplifted in the Tertiary period, their height being due to the fact that they are young geologicall,v and consequently have not suffered greatly from erosive agencies. The life of the Tertiarv jieriod jircsents many similarities to that of the present, altliuugli modern types had already begun to appear to some extent in the Cretaceous. In early Ter- tiarv time the climate was very mild over the entire globe, and there was an abundant plant growth tar to the north, plants being found in the rocks in many parts of Greenland. A grad- ual cooling of the climate followed, until at; the end of the Tertiarv .there began the formation of the gre.at continental glaciers that subse- quently spread over so much of the tem])erate zone. The faunal changes that occurred during this period were in many respects remarkal)le. Of the smaller animals — the ammonites, belem- nites, and other mollusean t.vpcs that swarmed in the Cretaceous — few lived in the Tertiary. The great reptiles had also disappeared, but their place was taken by still more gigantic mammals. The fishes, amphibians, and birds closely resembled modern t|).ves. The Tertiarv deposits inclose a variety of econnmic minerals. In the Cordilleran region many of the metalliferous veins are probably of Tertiarv a,ge, as are also some of the bituminous coals and lignites, in this same area, notably in Vashin,gton and Oregon. In the Tertiary beds of the -Atlantic and Gulf States are many de- posits of brick, pottery, and fire-clays, while much of the green sand obtained in the Atlantic coastal plain ie.eion is of Tertiarv age. In Texas deposits of limonite are known in this formation, while in Florida and South Carolina there are great supplies of rock phosphate. Petroleum and minei'al tar are obtained from the Tertiary deposits of southern California. P.inLioGR.PHY. Dall, A Table of North Ameri- can Tertiary Horizons. Eighteenth Annual Re- port United States Geological Survey, part ii., page 323 : Dana, Manual of (Icology ; Geikie, Text- Book of Geoloflij. Other references will be found under the titles referi'cd to below. See Geol- ogy ; P.LEO>"TOLOGT ; EocEXE EPOCH ; JIlOCEXE Epoch ; Pliocene Epocu. TERTUL'LIAN (Lat. TertnWanus) , QuiN- Tl'S Septimius FLOREN.S (born before 100. died after 220). One of the earliest Latin Church Fathers, a prolific writer, and the creator of ecclesiastical Latinit.y, He was born in Car- tha.ac, of heathen parentage, and trained for the profession of the law, which he practiced in Rome. Becoming a convert to Christianity shortly before the end of the second century, he returned to Carthage, where he was made pres- byter and spent the rest of his life. About the year 203 Tertullian became a Montanist, and he was thenceforth unsparingly severe in his views of ecclesiastical discipline and in his judgments upon the alleged moral laxity of the 'psychics,' as he calleil the members of the Catholic Church. No other figure in the early Church stands out so
