FLORA. 207 



tion. The multiple forms which clothed the Catamites 

 radiatus in Bear Island all reappeared in the more recent 

 stage of the lower carboniferous strata I would say in the 

 superincumbent schists (dachschiffer} of Moravia ; but 

 then this type lost itself, without our being able to cite 

 instead of it any form which would be analogous to it in 

 the middle carboniferous strata. A.nd it is the same with the 

 Knorria, the Cardiopten's, and Palaeopteris. These are facts 

 which decidedly protest against the doctrine of the incessant 

 and gradually progressive transformation of species which 

 the partisans of that theory ought not to ignore. Their 

 importance here is so much the greater that manifestly the 

 plants of Bear Island had to live under other conditions of 

 light than those of the Vosges, or of Ireland ; as they have 

 had to support a long winter night. It is indeed surprising 

 that evergreen trees, as in all probability were the Lepido- 

 dendron, and the plants so amply leaved as the Cardiop- 

 ten's frond osa, should have accommodated themselves to 

 so prolonged a darkness ; but in regard to this we must 

 take into consideration the circumstance that the flora of 

 Bear Island is composed almost entirely of cryptogams,* 

 which could pass from the light more easily and for a 

 longer time, than could phanerogams have done. Beyond 

 this the climate of Bear Island must have been as favour- 

 able to the growth of vegetables as was that which pre- 

 vailed in Ireland and in the Vosges, and that, although 

 this island is situated twenty-six and a half degrees further 

 north, since the species which they include are decidedly 

 as large and as luxuriant in appearance, and that they have 

 produced a layer of coal as thick as any found anywhere, 

 besides at a corresponding level but in less high latitudes,t 

 the heat was then still at this time distributed in an 



* Two Carpotithes, according to Dr Heer, alone belonged to the phanerogams. 



t The yellowish sandstone grit of Ireland presents only some thin beds of carbon in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of the plants. In the Yosges, and generally in all the 

 inferior carboniferous strata, we meet in no part with layers of coal of great magnitude. 

 Such layers begin to show themselves only from the point of departure at the middle 

 carboniferous strata, which have in consequence been designated as those of the period 

 of the productive formation of coal. 



