182 THE EARTH'S PROGRESS. 



" How long this era existed, science has failed to demon- 

 strate, but it passed away, and solid land marked the next 

 era of the earth's progress. It was surrounded by an 

 atmosphere absolutely fatal to animal life ; an atmosphere 

 which, while it stimulated vegetable growth, no living thing 

 could breathe and continue to live. Hence it was, that 

 vegetation, gigantic almost beyond conception, covered its 

 surface. Fern, which is now a pigmy plant, nowhere higher 

 than a few feet, grew tall and overshadowing like great 

 oaks, while oaks, it is fair to presume, towered thousands of 

 feet towards the sky. These stupendous forests stood alone 

 upon the surface of the earth ; no animals wandered through 

 their fastnesses ; no birds sported amidst their mighty 

 branches ; noxious exhalations came steaming up from their 

 tangled recesses, and their gloomy shadows lay a mantle of 

 darkness over dreary and lifeless solitudes. The storms 

 raged, and the winds howled ; the sun travelled its daily 

 rounds, with its light dimmed and clouded by the pestilen- 

 tial vapors it exhaled, and silence, so far as the sounds of 

 animal life were concerned, reigned supreme the stillness 

 of the grave, the quiet of utter desolation, save the voice of 

 the wind or the storm, was unbroken all over the face of 

 the earth. Onward, and onward, rolled this mighty orb on 

 its pathway through the heavens, bearing with it no animal 

 existences, freighted with no human hopes carrying with 

 it nothing of human destiny. Man, with all his lofty aspira- 

 tions, his mighty schemes, his glory, and his pride, was a 

 thing of the future. He had not yet emerged from the 



