Forest of the Carboniferous Period. 



CHAPTEE X. 



PLANTS OF PRIMITIVE TIMES. 



vegetable carpet which in our times embel- 

 lishes the surface of the terrestrial globe and 

 yields fruits and flowers, has not always existed under 

 the form in which it presents itself to us now. There 

 was a time when the aspect of vegetation was essen- 

 tially different, and the happy man to whom it might 

 be given to survey the two vegetable systems of primi- 

 tive and present times would be called upon to ad- 

 mire two worlds very different in their conditions 

 of existence. In the primitive time of which we 

 speak, no tree, bush, or flower, at present existing, was 

 to be found on the face of the earth. The world 

 presented a spectacle in every way different from ours. 

 There were, it is true, dense forests with shady 



