DEVONIAN ERA. 



93 



Even in some more favoured spots, like Point Gaspe, in 

 Canada, thin seams of bituminous coal are interlaminated 

 with the plant-yielding shales and sandstones, thus giving 

 further proof that the old red period had its areas of fer- 

 tility and areas of dwarfish sterility regions where climatic 

 influences were mild and genial, and others where they 

 were rigorous and destructive of vegetation. 



Adianates -Libernicus 



SandsLOue Series of Ireland. 



In the Animal World we have still the same numerical 

 abundance of zoophytes, of brachiopod, gasteropod, and cepha- 

 lopod molluscs; but the yraptolites, which flourished in such 

 profusion in the muddy bottoms of the silurian seas, have be- 

 come extinct ; the trilobites, whose species were then num- 

 bered by hundreds, are reduced to a dozen or two ; while 

 the larger crustacean forms of eurypterus, pterygotun, and 

 stylonurus, then merely appearing, now flourish in great 

 force; and fishes of various families swarm in vast profu- 



