KEPTILES ABUNDANT. 



71 



FIG. 45. 



straight trunk, terminating in a magnificent crown of foliage." 1 

 There were tree ferns, but 

 in smaller proportion than 

 in former ages ; also equi- 

 setacese, lilia, and coniferae. 

 The vegetation was gene- 

 rally analogous to that of 

 the Cape of Good Hope and 

 Australia, which seems to 

 argue a climate between the 

 tropical and temperate. It 

 was sufficiently luxuriant in 

 .this region of the globe to 

 produce thin seams of coal, 

 for there are such in the 

 oolite formation of both 

 Yorkshire and Sutherland, 

 while in Virginia the oolite 



presents a coal-field with seams from thirty to forty feet thick. 

 The sea, as for ages before, contained algse, of which, however, 

 only a few species have been preserved to our day. 



The lower marine animals present themselves in great abun- 



FIG. 46. 



Trunk of Cycadites r niegalopliyllus. 



Thecosmilia gregaria, an Oolitic coral. 



dance, and in some interesting varieties of form. Corals, scanty 

 in the lias, reappear in the oolite in quantity sufficient, at some 

 places, as we have seen, to constitute entire strata. The 

 crinoids are also numerous, and amongst these are new genera 



1 Buckland, Bridgewater Treatise. 



