A PIECE OF COAL. 621 



organization since then has come about through the unfokling and 

 development of the possibiUties, the carrying out of the promises, 

 and the f ulfiUment of the prophecies that were woven into every tissue 

 of the old ferns and ckib-mosses. The types that lay latent in the 

 oldest vegetation have simply been separated and perfected ; progres- 

 sive development has been gradually led along a series of intricate 

 but constantly diverging lines that lead out and up, and finally ter- 

 minate in the endless graded ranks and profuse varieties which con- 

 stitute the grand flora the grandest the world kas ever seen tkat 

 annually buds and blooms, and bears its wealtk of leaf and fruit 

 for you and me, provided xjnly we appreciate it all. Indeed, tkc 

 whole world, past and present, is ours, but only so far as mind and 

 soul can lay bold of and possess its wondrous beauty, and still more 

 wondrous meaning ; beyond tkat it belongs to tke dull ox as muck 

 as to us. 



But life kas never been tke exclusive property of plants, at least 

 not since tke geological record accessible to us began. Neitker kave 

 plants monopolized tke significant facts from wkick we may draw in- 

 teresting conclusions regarding tke laws of Nature and of being. In 

 our study of the coal, we catch glimpses of animals that are worthy 

 of notice. Their remains are left, along with the remains of plants, 

 imbedded in the coal itself, or in the strata that limit the coal-seam 

 above and below. Time will permit us to notice only a few examples. 

 We must omit all description of the large, clear-winged insects that 

 flitted in and out among the calamites and ferns, as well as of the 

 curious spiders that laid snares for them in all available places ; and we 

 can only mention the scorpions and cockroaches that hid in the chinks 

 and crevices of the fallen pines and club-mosses. All these would be 

 interesting enough if time allowed, and interesting too would be the 

 centipeds and land-snails that Dawson found in hollow Sigillarian 

 stumps of the coal-measures of Nova Scotia. All would tend to en- 

 force the lesson that the world in the Carboniferous age was controlled 

 and operated very much as at present. Trees germinated and grew to 

 perfection and died, and the hollow stumps became the refuge of myr- 

 iads of creeping things, that found safety from hungry enemies only 

 in complete concealment. 



It is to the animals of higher rank that we must give attention. 

 Let us remember that the Carboniferous age comes just after that 

 which witnessed the introduction of fishes the earliest as well as the 

 lowest of animals having brains, and heads, and spinal columns. It 

 lies, therefore, very near the focus toward which all the genealogical 

 lines of our present vertebrates converge, and hence every structural 

 feature in the higher Carboniferous animals becomes invested with a 

 peculiar interest. Of true fishes there were none they are a much later 

 product but, of creatures that combined in the most unthought-of 

 ways the characters of both fish and reptile, the seas seem to have 



