A PIECE OF COAL. 623 



future would have prevented his seeing any promise beyond. But 

 prophetic indications always betome plainer after their fulfillment, and 

 so we, by the aid of all subsequent life-history, are able to read in the 

 structure of the Carboniferous reptiles the promise of better things. 

 As the age draws on to its close, certain characters become more and 

 more pronounced in some of the old, half-formed crocodiles, while a 

 totally different set of peculiarities come to the front in others. Tak- 

 ing the whole group together, we find a very wide range of affinities 

 indicated. One of these points by unmistakable signs to the dino- 

 saurs great, biped, bird-like reptiles that became conspicuous in the 

 age following the coal. From these the passage is direct to the rep- 

 tilian birds of the same age, so like dinosaurs in many particulars 

 that they can hardly be distinguished. Then follows, after delay and 

 successive changes of form reaching over geologic periods, the real 

 bird type of our woods and fields, marvelous in its perfect adapta- 

 tions and marvelous in its perfect symmetry and beauty. 



But some of those old reptiles are fraught with suggestions of still 

 higher meaning. In some of the groups recently brought to light 

 from strata that mark the closing epochs of the Carboniferous age, the 

 coming mammal is very plainly indicated. And so, if we only read 

 aright, we may find in our piece of coal the suggestion and the jsrom- 

 ise of even the highest forms of life. 



So it is that we have a very direct interest in that old coal age, an 

 interest altogether independent of the coal itself, even though we 

 know that modern industry and commerce and civilization, and the 

 great centers of human population the manuf actui'ing and commer- 

 cial cities, with all their wealth and magnificence are directly de- 

 pendent upon its marvelous stores of energy. The physicist will tell 

 us how that energy, which drives our engines, warms and lights our 

 rooms and makes it possible for us to sit here in comfort and never 

 miss the light of the sun to-night, is simply so much force derived 

 from the sunbeams of the Carboniferous age, invested for our benefit 

 in the old ferns and club-mosses ; and yet our interest in the coal rises 

 above all this. The roots of the present strike very deeply into the 

 past, and nothing is risked in saying that, had the Carboniferous age, 

 in its strangely constituted life-forms or in any other regard, been 

 different in ever so small a degree, the present would not be just what 

 it is. It is away back in the coal that we find, not only the promise 

 of the grandly diversified system of vegetable life that lends so much 

 of beauty and interest to the age in which we live ; but it was then, 

 also, that manifest preparations were made for bringing upon the scene 

 the various specialized groups of animals that are to-day a matter of 

 personal concern to every one of us. It was in the coal, too, that we 

 found the first real evident but rude shapings of the organic frame 

 which we ourselves wear. Hugh Miller an authority that may be 

 safely introduced on this occasion was accustomed to quote approv- 



