THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 255 
and who overlooks it, a thousand years are as but a single 
day, and a single day as a thousand years.* 
We have entered the Coal Measures. For seven forma- 
tions together—from the Lower Silurian to the Upper Old 
Red Sandstone —our course has lain over oceans without a 
visible shore, though, like Columbus, in his voyage of dis- 
covery, we have now and then found a little floating weed, to 
indicate the approaching coast. ‘The water is fast shallow- 
ing. Yonder passes a broken branch, with the leaves still 
unwithered ; and there floats a tuft of fern. Land, from the 
mast-head! land! land !—a low shore, thickly covered with 
vegetation. Huge trees, of wonderful form, stand out far 
into the water. There seems no intervening beach. A thick 
hedge of reeds, tall as the masts of pinnaces, runs along the 
deeper bays, like water-flags at the edge of a lake. A river 
of vast volume comes rolling from the interior, darkening 
the water for leagues with its slime and mud, and bearing 
with it, to the open sea, reeds, and fern, and cones of the 
pine, and immense floats of leaves, and now and then some 
bulky tree, undermined and uprooted by the current. We 
near the coast, and now enter the opening of the stream. A 
scarce penetrable phalanx of reeds, that attain to the height 
and well nigh the bulk of forest trees, is ranged on either hand. 
The bright and glossy stems seem rodded like Gothic col- 
umns; the pointed leaves stand out green at every joint, tier 
above tier, each tier resembling a coronal wreath or an an- 
cient crown, with the rays turned outwards; and we see a-top 
_ 
belonged to an individual of the species, is 184 inches in length; and 
itis furnished with teeth, one of which, from base to point, measures 
five inches, and another four and a half. 
* See, on this subject, the introductory note to the present edition, 
and note p. 164. 
