THE SUNK£N ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 13 
with the euormous uiasses of combustible materials preserved in 
argillaceous and arenaceous strata in the shape of lignite. There can 
be no doubt that the geological conditions of our globe were at that 
time very different from what they are at present; and the surface 
of our planet, the elevation of the solid land, must have essentially 
differed from what they are now. In this place it is not my intention 
to pass under review the whole of the earth's surface with regard to the 
distribution of land and sea, for which we have as yet but insufficient 
data, but I shall give a few hints about the aspect of Em^ope during 
that period, the condition of the adjoining eastern and the great western 
continent, and the intervening ocean. The interest attaching to this 
subject is increased by the fact that it is our present home we shall 
behold as it appeared millions of years ago. I shall begin by introducing 
such details as are essential to ray argument. 
It is well known that in the beds of brown-coal, when they have 
not become a compact mass, we find fragments of a great number of 
plants and animals. .It is highly interesting to cast a glance at 
this subterranean herbarium, and twenty years ago I eagerly studied 
this singular collection xmder very favourable circumstances. At 
that tiiue the botanical treasures of the much older coal formation 
and of the later deposits had been investigated, but those of the 
lignite still remained a sealed book. As might have been ex- 
pected, the study of these vegetable fragments made a deep impres- 
sion upon me, and caused me many a surprise. The plants and 
animals of earlier periods exhibit but slight analogy with those of 
the present. But here all was reversed. In these investigations 
(ofteD difficult) one frequently came across known forms, and some- 
times it would seem as if one had to deal with the sweepings of a 
park, — -I say advisedly a park, planted as it is with indigenous and 
foreign trees and shrubs. The most surprising was, that a conside- 
rable number of these plants so closely resembled the trees and shrubs 
nowadays growing in North America as to be scarcely distinguishable 
from them. Justly attaching great importance to this fact, I may be 
permitted to refer, in support of it, to a few fossils. One of them is a 
rather large 3-5-lobed leaf, with toothed margin and long petiole. 
The leaf of only one tree now indigenous to North America resembles it 
(Liq 
ifiua, Linn.) 
That no mistake 
