242 TOWARDS THE HUMAN FORM 



it was the same all the year round. This vegetation grew in 

 rank profusion, without pause or pity, with undiminished 

 vigour throughout the year. Under a warmer sun in a moist 

 atmosphere, with an almost constant temperature, the pro- 

 duction of vegetable matter, at any given time, must have been 

 much greater than in our own da}', when regular cold and dry 

 intervals interrupt its growth. This is one reason why the 

 coal beds remained so extensive and so intact, although, as 

 Bernard Renaud has shown, cellulose-destroying microbes had 

 already begun their work of disintegration upon the cellulose 

 of which the solid plant tissues are composed in the manner of 

 our existing Bacillus amylobacter. But it was not only its 

 green uniformity that made this luxuriant vegetation seem 

 so mournful. No living creatures were to be seen crawling 

 among the mosses and on the trees but millipeds hunted by 

 scorpions, indeterminate-looking spiders, spiritless Insects, such 

 as white Ants, Cockroaches, and Phasmids scurrying to shelter. 

 In such a world slow-moving armoured Salamanders must 

 have looked like giants. The air was practically uninhabited. 

 The swiftest of its denizens were May-flies, Ant-lions, and 

 Dragon-flies. There were neither Bees, Butterflies, nor Birds. 

 No voice sang of the joy of living, or sent its love-calls or even 

 its cries of terror into the moisture-laden air. There was no 

 intelligence present to be scared by volcanic eruptions, by 

 the flash of lightning, or the rumbling of earthquakes. Life 

 was manifestly experimenting. It was not to blossom till 

 the period which we shall now enter. 



