THE SEQUOIAS OR BIG TREES 47 



we have a dim idea that they must be a pretty old type and that, 

 although compared to the most ancient known rocks the Jurassic 

 rocks are mere infants, still the Jurassic age came to a close several 

 million years ago. But we can no more form a concept of the dura- 

 tion of several million years than we can of astronomical distances, 

 and it is only by glancing at the progress of life on the globe during 

 all those years that we get any sort of an idea of the remoteness of 

 the Jurassic period. 



Could imagination transport us to Jurassic times and set us down 

 near the mouth of where the Hudson now flows, we should find little 

 that was familiar in either the fauna or the flora. The sediments 

 which now exist as the red sandstones and shales of the Connecticut 

 valley and New Jersey had already been deposited. Volcanic 

 activity had been considerable and vast quantities of molted rock 

 had been forced through the outer crust of the earth, forming, among 

 others, the Orange Mountains of New Jersey and the noble line 

 of Palisades along the Hudson. However, it is quite probable 

 that one would have been as little disturbed by earthquakes seven 

 or eight million years ago than are the inhabitants of New Jersey 

 at the present time by the sinking of their eastern coast. Events 

 moved with inconceivable slowness then as now. Cur Jurassic 

 sojourner would have found everything strange. In the marshes 

 flourished great ferns competing with an amazing variety of forms 

 known as cycads — curious and ancient plants of which the com- 

 monly cultivated sago palm is a familiar example. In the dryer 

 areas, along with the majority of the cycads there flouirshed the 

 numerous ancestors of the ginkgo, the maiden-hair tree, that unique 

 relic of bygone days, which has been saved from extinction in 

 modern times by the loving care of the priests about the temples 

 of China and Japan. 



There were apparently no representatives of those plants wliich 

 are dominant in the world today — the flowering plants or angio- 

 sperms as they are called. Ancient lung-fishes, gar pikes and croco- 

 diles haunted the rivers. At sea were swarms of sharks and ganoid 

 fishes. Bat-like flying reptiles were the common denizens, no 

 true birds being known from North .America at this early date, 



