fu, we 
OOLITIC SYSTEM. 167 
workable and abundant, which disproves the notion too prevalent that 
coal can be obtained only from the Coal-measures. Lignite is a less 
hard variety of coal, and the jet, which is only a crystallised coal, yields 
the beautiful jet of Whitby, so much used for ornaments. 
Organic Remains.—The remains of plants and animals are so abundant, 
that their enumeration and description would fill volumes, and we can 
merely roughly indicate some of their wonderful forms. , P 
Vegetable life was abundant, requirimg a warm climate like that of 
Australia. We find sea-weeds, beautiful tree-ferns, lily-like leaves, palms 
like the pandanus, and pines like the araucaria and yew. The clays that 
occur were the very soil on which those ancient forests grew, and in 
some of them, known as ‘ dirt-beds,’ the roots are seen in natural position, 
with part of the trunk broken over, while the tree itself lies close by, as 
if cut down by the woodman but yesterday. ts 
The animal remains are abundant and remarkable. We find sponges, 
exquisite star-corals, beautiful encrinites, sea- 
urchins, worms, and lobsters. The shells are 
very beautiful and varied, the most remarkable 
being the ammonite, of which there are one 
hundred and thirty species, and the nautilus. 
Gigantic cuttle-fish floated and spread their black 
ink through the oolitic seas. Fishes were numer- 
ous and large ; huge plated sharks devoured their 
prey, their very names telling terrible things, such 
as ‘Strong-tooth,’ ‘Sharp-tooth,’ and ‘ Great-jaw :’ 
tortoises also floated on the summer seas. 
But the most striking remains are those of Fig. 91.—Ammonite. 
reptiles, so numerous, strange, and uncouth, that 
the Oolite has been designated the ‘Age of Reptiles’ We find 
enormous skeletons, some of them thirty feet long, of large lizards and 
crocodiles, all being more or less strange and terrible. 
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Fig. $2.—Skeleton of the Ichthyosaurus. 
In these rocks, too, a most interesting discovery has lately been made, 
that of the earliest feathered creature—a real bird—in which the bones 
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