PALAEONTOLOGY. 279 



the theoretical views that have been started rejravdinjr the 

 simphcity of primitive forms of organic Hfe, or that vegetable 

 preceded animal lile, and that the former was necessarily de- 

 pendent upon the latter. The existence of races of men in- 

 habiting the icy regions of the North Polar lands, and whose 

 nutriment is solely derived from lish and cetaceans, shows the 

 possibility of maintaining life independently of vegetable sub- 

 stances. After the devonian system and the mountain lime- 

 stone, we come to a formation, the botanical analysis oi" which 

 has made such brilliant advances in modern times.* The 

 coal measures contain not only fern- like cryptogamic plants 

 and phanerogamic monocotyledons (grasses, yucca-like Lilia- 

 cea3, and palms), but also gymnospermic dicotyledons (Coniferte 

 and Cycadeas), amounting in all to nearly 400 species, as char- 

 acteristic of the coal formations. Of these we will onlv enu- 

 merate arborescent Calamites and Lycopodiacese, scaly Lepi- 

 dodendra, Sigillarise, which attain a height of sixty feet, and 

 are sometimes found standing upright, being distinguished by 

 a double system of vascular bundles, cactus-like Stigmarite, a 

 great number of ferns, in some cases the stems, and in others 

 the fronds alone being found, indicating by their abundance 

 the insular form of the dry land,t Cycadea3,$ especially palms, 

 although fewer in number,^ Asterophyllites, having whorl-like 

 leaves, and allied to the Naiades, with araucaria-like Coniferse,!! 

 which exhibit faint traces of annual rings. This difference of 

 character from our present vegetation, manifested in the vege- 

 tative forms which were so luxuriously developed on the drier 



* By the important labors of Couut Sternberg, Adolphe Brougniart, 

 Goppert, and Lindley. 



t See Robert Brown's Botany of Congo, p. 42, and the Memoir of 

 the unfortunate D'Urville, De la Distribution des Fougeres sur la Sur- 

 face du Globe Terrestre. 



X Such are the Cycadeae discovered by Count Sternberg in the old 

 carboniferous formation at Radnitz, in Bohemia, and described by 

 Corda (two species of Cycatides and Zamites Cordai. See Goppert, 

 Fossile Cycadeen in den Arbeiten der Schles. GeseUschaft, fur vaterl. 

 Cultur im Jahr 1843, s. 33, 37, 40, and 50). A Cycadea (Pterophyllum 

 gonorrhachis, Gopp.) has also been found in the carboniferous forma- 

 tions in Upper Silesia, at Konigshtitte. 



$ Lindley, Fossil Flora, No. xv., p. 163. 



II Fossil Coniferce, in Buckland's Geology, p. 483-490. Witham has 

 the great merit of having first recognized the existence of Coniferse in 

 the early vegetation of the old carboniferous formation. Almost all the 

 trunks of trees found in this formation were previously regarded as 

 palms. The species of the genus Arancaria are, however, not pecul- 

 iar to the coal formations of the British Islands; they likewise occur in 

 Upper Silesia. 



