60 EXPLANATIONS. 



than quote the laborious young Professor of 

 King's College — " The plants which have hitherto 

 been described [in the carboniferous formation], 

 belong either to the acotyledonous class, as the 

 ferns, or to the monocotyledons and, on the whole, 

 they constitute the simplest forms of vegetation ; but 

 there have also been met with among coal plants, 

 unquestionable evidences of dicotyledonous struc- 

 ture, and a genus has been formed under the 

 name of Pinites, to include a number of speci- 

 mens of fossil wood, &c."* To the undoubted 

 evidence of Mr. Ansted, may be added that of his 

 more eminent contemporary, Mr. Lyell, whose 

 sense of the botanical character of this age is 

 such that he emphatically calls it the Age of 

 Ferns.] It is evident, then, taking the land- 

 plants of this era as the first, that it is of a nature 

 to harmonize vnth the development theory, for its 

 chief forms are humble, and only a few are of 

 higher grade, most of these, too, being of an in- 

 termediate character between the low and the 

 high. I am reminded, however, in other quarters, 

 of certain experiments of Dr. Lindley, show- 

 ing that the plants chiefly found in the coal are 



* Ansted's Geology. 1844. 

 t Travels in North America, ii. 52. 



