Reflections on Primitive Vegetation. 3 



pose, is equally replete with interest ; but the first are entire- 

 ly under the cognizance of the geologist; the second, on the 

 contrary, necessarily demand the knowledge of the zoologist 

 and the botanist: for they alone, by an exact comparison 

 between the remains of fossilized animals or vegetables, and 

 the corresponding parts of beings now existing, are capable 

 of determining the relations which connect the inhabitants of 

 the globe, at different periods. It is thus that Cuvier, in his 

 admirable Researches on Fossil Bones, basing his conclusions 

 on the positive evidences furnished by comparative anatomy, 

 has gone so far as to re-construct skeletons of the greater part 

 of the animals, whose remains had been then discovered, and 

 has been able to determine, and most probably, correctly, their 

 external forms, and their affinities to existing species. 



Botany, although for a long time it had furnished fewer docu- 

 ments relating to the ancient state of the globe, must never- 

 theless be equally called upon to lend its aid to the geologist; 

 and may even throw more light than zoology, upon the state 

 of the earth's surface, during the most distant periods of its 

 formation. Indeed, at the period when life began to shew it- 

 self upon our globe, the animals were small in size, and ex- 

 clusively confined to the ocean ; and a luxuriant vegetation, 

 forming immense forests, covered all those portions of the 

 surface, which the sea left unoccupied : and ultimately each 

 period of repose, had its proper vegetation, more or less vari- 

 ed and abundant, according to the circumstances which acted 

 upon the developement of the materials of which it was com- 

 posed, and perhaps, according to the duration of these periods, 

 but almost always entirely different from that of the subse- 

 quent or preceding epoch. 



Of these several distinct associations of vegetables which 

 have successively flourished upon our globe, none is so wor- 

 thy of our attention, as that which appears to have been the 

 first developed, and which, during a long space of time, seems 

 to have covered with thick forests, all those parts of the earth 

 which were above the level of the waters, and the remains of 

 which, piled one upon another, have formed those frequently 

 thick and numerous beds of coal, which are the preserved re- 

 lics of the primitive forests that preceded, by many ages, the 

 existence of man ; and which, furnishing a substitute for the 

 forests of the present sera, that are daily diminishing through 

 the increase of population, are become one of the principal 

 sources of national prosperity. 



There can, indeed, be no doubt, that coal owes its origin to 

 accumulated masses of vegetables, altered and modified in the 

 same manner as the peat-beds of our marshes would probably 



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