88 NATURAL HISTORY 



instructed mind a story of grandeur and sublimity 

 It may repeople the earth with wondrous forms, 

 pour the oceans upon the sinking land, and move 

 the hills like watery billows. 



The fancy roams through all the beauties and 

 grandeur of the early earth. If we have never had 

 the privilege of studying one of Nature's galleries of 

 ancient art, we can not do better than to hear Buck- 

 land describe the richness of the Bohemian coal 

 mines. 



"The most elaborate imitations of living foliage 

 upon the painted ceilings of Italian palaces, bear no 

 comparison with the beauteous profusion of extinct 

 vegetable forms with which the galleries of these 

 instructive coal mines are overhung. The roof is 

 covered as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry, 

 enriched with festoons of most graceful foliage, 

 flung in wild, irregular profusion over every portion 

 of its surface. The effect is heightened by the 

 contrast of the coal-black color of the vegetables 

 with the light ground-work of the rock to which 

 they are attached. The spectator feels himself 

 transported, as if by enchantment, into the forests of 



