350 AUSTRALIAN, SOUTH AFRICAN, AND INDIAN COAL-MEASURES, 



not chilled, flowing to the north. (Somewhat similar to this was 

 the system of circulation in the Western or Indian Ocean, though 

 on a much larger scale.) 



Hence the climates were warm and moist, the land surfaces 

 below the snow line were clothed with luxuriant vegetation, and 

 the sea swarmed with animal life of familiar Carboniferous types. 

 The maritime lowlands, especially in the eastern portion of the 

 Australian group, were covered with forests or jungles of Lepido- 

 dendra, Calamites, and the other allied forms with which we are 

 so familiar in the Carboniferous formations of the Northern 

 Hemisphere. In the more northerly parts of the same group such 

 forms were abundant on both eastern and western flanks of the 

 principal islands ; but towards the south they became more and 

 more restricted to the moister and warmer east. As the land 

 rose towards the mountains the vegetation grew less luxuriant, 

 and began to consist principally or at least most conspicuously 

 of ferns and Equisetaceous plants of humbler growth and hardier 

 habit ; until at the higher level the plants became for the most 

 part reduced to ferns of creeping or scrambling habit, with 

 simple fronds not unlike some of the existing Polypodiums, 

 accumulating in thick matted brakes, the lower beds of which 

 were gradually being consolidated into peat. 



Among these, especially near brooks or in swamps, were dense 

 reed-beds of Horsetails or similar plants. In short, the flora of 

 these high lands was of what I have already named the Glossop- 

 teris type ; while the dense and rank vegetation of the shores was 

 the Lepidodendron flora of the Northern Hemisphere, of the 

 Drummond Range, of Tamwoith, Stroud, Cobar, Gippsland, 

 Grahamstown in S. Africa, and other places known and unknown. 

 It did not however extend, so far as I can see at this distance, 

 into the latitudes of Tasmania, nor into the New Zealand group 

 to the eastward. This is the first picture in the geological magic 

 lantern, the first of the epochs under our consideration. 



After a long interval of darkness in which we can discern 

 jiothing clearly, but have an indistinct perception of great 



