222 SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA 



Such questions have been, and are being, considered by 

 experts on behalf of the Government. A matter of interest 

 of another kind is that in and associated with the coal 

 seams of our Coal Measures, fossilized remains of peculiar 

 fern-like trees, ferns, and other strange plants, and of very 

 pecular, extinct newt-like animals (as large as crocodiles) 

 are found in great variety. The notion that the toads 

 occasionally found embedded in the black mud of a coal- 

 yard or even in a fractured lump of coal are survivals from 

 the time many millions of years past when the plants 

 and animals of the Coal Measure swamps were living, is 

 a baseless fancy. The toads so found are of the kind or 

 species now living on the earth totally different from 

 those whose bones occur in the Coal Measures, and the 

 presence of such modern toads embedded in black slime, 

 in coal-heaps in store-yards, or even in coal-scuttles, is 

 only what may be expected to occur and does occur in 

 damp quarries and other places where these familiar little 

 beasts love to hide. 



