The Soil 9 



the higher forms. The great moss trees were the means' 

 used by the Almighty to remove the excess of carbon 

 dioxide from the air, and thus gradually fit it for the use of 

 higher and higher developed animals. Age after age the j 

 old moss trees grew and fell, and on their remains other 

 vegetation flourished entirely unlike the trees and plants 

 of to-day. After a while the earth again settled, and the 

 sand and earth covered the great accumulation of vegeta 

 ble matter and formed the sandstone roof over the coal] 

 deposits. The active energy of the sunHght through un- 

 numbered ages was then located in the great coal deposits 

 to await the coming of man for its transformation into 

 active energy by means of the steam engine and other 

 devices. We know that the climate was of a tropical 

 nature at this time by the evidence of the plants that then 

 grew and whose carbonized forms we now find in the 

 coal. 



Even in ice-covered Greenland are found the remain^ 

 of trees similar to the sequoias, or big trees, now knownj 

 only in CaHfornia. Later on, the earth in the eastern 

 part of the country was crumpled into mountains, and the 

 coal was pressed and its bituminous matter burned out, 

 till the hard anthracite coal of the Pennsylvania hills was 

 made; while westward, undisturbed by the upheaval, it 

 remained bituminous. The Rocky Mountains of the 

 West were a later upheaval than the Blue Ridge, and in 

 the rocks thousands of feet above the sea level are found! 

 the perfectly fossilized remains of fish similar to our her-j 

 ring, showing how great was the upheaval. 



With the elevation of the mountains the work of the 

 water at once began. The rains descended and the 



