THE PALMS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 171 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PALMS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 



Our sketch of the palm tribe would be very 

 incomplete without some notice of those which 

 inhabited the earth in very ancient periods, the 

 records of which are preserved in nature's own 

 herbarium, the fossiliferous rocks — those cabi- 

 nets full of " medals of creation." In these we 

 find the remains of great numbers of plants 

 which no longer tenant our earth, among Avhich 

 species of the elegant tribe of ferns are very 

 numerous. The palms seem to have formed a 

 portion of the flora of our globe at a very early 

 period of vegetable life, and to have lifted their 

 plumed heads above the denizens of the forest 

 when Calamites, Lepidodendra, SigiUca-ias, and 

 other strange plants, swarmed around them, 

 and, by their constant accumulation, were pre- 

 paring materials for those vast deposits of coal 

 which are now of such inestimable importance. 

 Many and strange are the revelations which 

 geology has made concerning the early inha- 



