292 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



earth before the higher animals were created. In the 

 coal beds we find casts of huge lycopods, ferns, and 

 conifers, and mammoth growths of the palm family. 

 The ferns of the carboniferous age in geological no- 

 menclature, which now grow to a height of four to 

 five feet, then attained an altitude of sixty or eighty 

 feet. The anatomy of these plants has to be studied 

 in the barks, twigs, and leaves of carbonized speci- 

 mens which have not suffered mutilation. Occasion- 

 ally the trunk of a standing tree is offered for dissec- 

 tion and examination. 



But before the carboniferous age were both plants 

 and animals not coal-making trees, nor creatures 

 above mollusks and fishes, yet forming chapters in the 

 earth's history which, through preserved fossils, can 

 be read with distinctness of expression not to be sur- 

 passed by the electrotyped pages of a modern book. 

 And away back of the carboniferous period far back 

 in the Devonian era were stately trees, mosses, and 

 marine plants, with a multitude of monstrous sharks, 

 and fish enough for them to feed upon. And even 

 anterior to the Devonian, was the Silurian age, noted 

 for the absence of fishes, and famous for its infinitude 

 of mollusks for the predominance of alga 1 and in- 

 vertebrate animals. Then there were no land animals 

 all life was in the sea. It corresponded with the 

 Divine fiat at the commencement of the fifth day, ac- 

 cording to the Mosaic account of creation: "Let the 

 waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatmv 

 that hath life." 



Before the Silurian, in Archaean time, when, so 

 far as the " records of the rocks go," there was no liv- 

 ing thing on the earth, nor in the waters thereof; it 

 was void of organic life. Dismal indeed must have 



