44 LAND LIFE BEGINS 



nineteenth century it was well known that there were 

 great seams of coal in the crust of the earth, and it 

 did not take long to discover that these seams are the 

 decomposed remains of extraordinary forests which 

 at one time covered the earth. The tree trunks and 

 fern leaves are often quite plain in the coal. But 

 they all belonged to one particular and remote period 

 (the Carboniferous, or Coal-bearing, period) in the 

 story of the earth. Why had there been such vast 

 and unique forests at that period? I have given the 

 answer. The conditions were unique for that kind 

 of vegetation. It was the golden age of ferns and 

 mosses and similar types. It has given us the coal 

 seams of the world. 



How and why the great forests came to an end, and 

 have never re-appeared, we shall see in the next 

 chapter. Let us look more closely at them before 

 they pass away. On- the west coast of New Zealand 

 I have looked down, from the summit of the hills a 

 mile or two inland, upon forests of tree ferns spread- 

 ing above a great carpet of every variety of mosses. 

 This is a degenerate patch of the great coal forests 

 of long ago. It has no longer the luxurious conditions 

 of the coal forest. The winter there is almost as cold 

 as in London. But close at hand, in fact often under 

 the tree-fern woods, are seams of coal which suggest 

 that these great stretches of fern and moss have 

 lingered on until to-day ; though hardier types of fern 

 and moss have taken the place of the old types. 



