WERE LAID DOWN 



climate spread all over Europe, and as far north as 

 Spitzbergen the waters were warm enough to support 

 coral reefs and plants which we associate with the seas 

 of genial latitudes. In time the Carboniferous sea became 

 quite filled up ; and its floor was raised up to or a little 

 above the waters. Then in great swamps, marshes, and 

 low lands, the burgeoning vegetable life of the northern 

 hemisphere entered on its long-deferred reign. It was 

 then that the coal which we burn in our grates to-day 

 was laid down. Let us consider the circumstances in 

 which coal is to be found. The coal formations, as we 

 know them, are found in the same state, and evidently 

 laid down in the same era, from the Equator up to Mel- 

 ville Island in the Arctic regions, where in our day it is 

 always freezing. They stretch from Nova Zembla to the 

 middle of China ; and they are much the same in New 

 Zealand and New South Wales. Therefore the first 

 conclusion we draw was that nearly all over the globe 

 the climate was -the same hot, close, moist, muggy. 

 Whatever the climate was the growth of vegetation was 

 tremendous. 



We shall have presently to say a little more about the 

 vegetation ; but for the present we need only say that it 

 was very different from the vegetation with which most 

 of us are familiar. Imagine a hot, damp atmosphere, a 

 kind of perpetual warm fog through which the rays of 

 the sun struggled with difficulty, and where rain fell on 

 most days of the year a perpetual steaming hothouse. 

 There was little variety in the appearance of the vast 

 forest swamps. It certainly possessed, wrote Louis 



219 



