LONE BURIALS IN THE COAL LANDS. 175 



ferred to were left by the fallen fronds or leaves, and in these 

 it also resembled ferns. We base these inferences on the 

 study of specimens imbedded in the strata associated with the 

 coal. All comprehensive types are primitive and low in rank. 

 The low rank of these plants is evinced also by the absence 

 of flowers and fruit. 



But we find here, also, the relics of once animated forms. 

 As the coal was produced on the land; as the vegetation 

 grew on the land, the animal remains would be those of the 

 land. They would be air-breathers. So here they are Snails 

 air-breathing mollusks. Every one has noticed the snail 

 crawling about with his house on his back. He lives in damp 

 retired places, and feeds on the leaves of herbs. The situation 

 must have been sufficiently retired ten million years ago in a 

 a forest where the woodman's axe never resounded, and foot- 

 step neither of man nor beast was ever heard. But distant 

 as was the age, snail natures were very similar to snail 

 natures in the nineteenth century. Even then, they congre- 

 gated on the peaty soil in the damp situations about old 

 stumps. They held there their social meetings, and some- 

 times they found a more secure and congenial retreat in the 

 interior of a stump hollowed by age and decay. In such 

 situations they have been found especially in the enormously 

 developed coal measures of Nova Scotia. We find two types 

 of land-snails in the Coal Measures ; one is like our modern 

 genus Helix, and the other resembles Pupa. 



I just now intimated that these humble air-breathers were 

 not disturbed in their retreats by man or beast. This is 

 simply a conclusion from the fossil remains. These are the 

 most important records of the past. Since no bones of human 

 beings nor of any mammals have ever been found fossilized 

 in the Coal Measures, we feel justified in concluding that man 

 and mammals were not in existence while the coal beds accu- 

 mulated. We have got down to a geological horizon or level 

 which answers to a time when the higher organisms had not 

 appeared. So we see that they have not enjoyed an eternal 

 existence on the earth. But we do find bones of vertebrates 



