194 COAL EPOCH. 



mia and Saxony, with several coal lakes on their surface ; the coal 

 deposits of Moravia and Galicia seem to show their extension 

 towards those countries. There was one island, at least, between 

 Cologne and Francfort, presenting in its southern part the great 

 coal basin of the country of Treves, and uniting, at the north, with 

 the ancient formation of the Hartz. Dry land also existed in the 

 peninsula of Scandinavia, where nothing has been deposited since 

 the Silurian formations ; but it seems to have been sterile, and 

 without swamps, for it affords no trace of coal. 



We are entirely ignorant of what existed where the great cities 

 now stand; but the absence of carboniferous limestone, out of Bel- 

 gium and England, may lead us to think that a great portion of 

 western Europe was then uncovered, and perhaps presented coal 

 lakes which subsequent catastrophes have sunk beneath the seas. 



A part of the land just mentioned has always remained unco- 

 vered to the present time, or has been even upheaved more and 

 more by various subsequent catastrophes, as Brittany and the cen- 

 tral plateau of France. At certain points, in fact, coal deposits 

 have been pushed upwards to a great height, as the plateau of 

 Santa Fe de Bogota, and in the Cordillera of Huarochiri, where 

 some are found from 2700 to 4600 yards above the sea. In other 

 places, on the contrary, it is evident the formations have sunk, to 

 be covered by more modern deposits, through which the coal is 

 sought in the depth, as at Anzin, under the chalk, in Vosges, under 

 the red sandstone, in Cevennes, under the jura'ssic limestone, &c., 

 and, in general, on the borders of new formations exposed by sub- 

 sequent catastrophes. Without doubt, there is some deeply-buried, 

 and for ever lost to us, either under different sediments, or under 

 water, as at Whitehaven, in England, where the mine extends 

 more than a quarter of a league from the shore, and a hundred 

 yards beneath the bottom of the sea. 



The vegetation of this epoch, favoured, no doubt, by the insular 

 form of the land, as it now is in all islands, consisted of lycopodia'- 

 ceae, equisita'cese, ferns, &c., of arborescent species, the analogues 

 of which are no longer found except within the tropics, with co'ni- 

 fers resembling the araucaria. The mass of coal was formed of 

 their debris, with cellular cryptoga'mia, which then grew under 

 water, as now, in peat-marshes, and under a still more favourable 

 temperature for their development. 



The seas of this epoch had lost their trilobites ; but contained, 

 'n great abundance, spi'rifers, productus, orthoceras of particular 

 species, different ce'phalopods, analogous to the nautilus and argo- 

 naut, and various other shells. The encri'nites were so extensively 

 multiplied that their debris constitute, almost of themselves, certain 

 varieties of Flemish and Belgian marble. Sauroid fishes, of great 

 size, and of especially vigorous organization, then existed ; and 

 the family of sharks, still feeble, presented cestra'cions and hybo- 

 dons (figs. 52, 53, p. 45). 



