CAiniOXIFKHOUS PLANTS. , 339 



remarkable period when the dry land first began to 

 appear. 



All the animals found in the strata we have mentioned 

 ore such as would inhabit the seas ; but we gradually 

 arrive at distinct evidence of the separation of the land 

 from the water, and the "green tree yielding seed" 

 presents itself to our attention ; not that the strata 

 earlier than this are entirely destitute of any remains 

 indicating vegetable growth, but those they exhibit are 

 such as, in all probability, may be referred to marine 

 plants. 



Those plants, however, which are found in the car- 

 boniferous series are most of them distinguished by all 

 the characteristics of those which grow upon the land ; 

 we, therefore, in the mutilated remains of vegetation left 

 *is in our coal-formations, read the history of our early 

 world. 



Then the reed-like calamite bowed its hollow and 

 fragile stems over the edges of the lakes ; the tree-ferns 

 grew luxuriantly in the shelter of the hills, and gave a 

 wild beauty to the humid valleys ; the lepidodendrons 

 spread themselves in mighty forests along the plains, 

 which they covered with their curious cones ; whilst the 

 sigillarise extended their multitudinous branches, wreath- 

 ing like serpents amongst the luxurious vegetation, and 

 embraced, with their roots (stigmarise), a most extensive 

 space on every side.* 



The seas and lakes of this period abounded with 

 minute animals nearly allied to the coral animals, which 

 are now so actively engaged in the formation of islands 

 in the tropical and southern seas. During the ages 

 which passed by without any remarkable disturbance of 



* On the Vegetation of the Carboniferous Period as compared with 

 that of the present day ; On some peculiarities in the structure of 

 Stigmaria; Remarks on the Structure and Affinities of some Lepi- 

 dostrobi : by Dr. Hooker; Memoirs of the Geological Survey, 

 xV-c., vol. ii. pp. 387, 431, 440. 



