- SCENES FROM THE COAL PERIOD. 243 



stormy and turbid shore ; and a broad belt was given to the 

 land. The torn beach, crumbling before the waves, contrib- 

 uted coarse rubble for the foundations of new land .in some 

 future age. The vegetation promised for the impending epoch 

 was crowding into possession of the ground. It flung its frag- 

 ments into the deep in challenge to the conflict which now 

 sent its murmur through the world. These chips from the 

 by standing forest were buried in the sands which loaded the 

 sea-bottom. Every thing was ready ; the curtain was about 

 to rise. 



Now came the first charge in the conflict destined to alter- 

 nate during an age; another collapse of some of the stays 

 and supports of the rigid crust. The land uprose by another 

 notch ; the bottom of the sea was lifted to the surface. The 

 great " Carboniferous Conglomerate" was now first bathed in 

 air and sunlight. The continent of North America received 

 an annexation of territory which stretched from the Seaboard 

 Land east of the Appalachians, to the Great Plains. The new 

 territory included all the regions which had been selected as 

 the sites of the capacious coal repositories, for the use of 

 civilization. It was not a dry upland. It was a broad and 

 mighty marsh. Michigan was not included in the common 

 continental marsh, but stood apart for a special destiny. 



Now, over all this breadth of bog and swale sprang tip 

 vegetable growths trees and -herbs, ferns and rushes, with 

 the all-engrossing airs of those who come to hold possession. 

 Whence these forms? Some, as I said, had been nursed on 

 the older and contiguous land, and now entered upon a new 

 possession because it was fit. Some sprang from germs fresh 

 planted by some unseen hand. What mean all these trans- 

 formations? They mean progress. They mean man. They 

 mean civilization. It is not alone change ; it is improvement. 

 This luxuriant crop is sustained by the carbonic acid of the 

 atmosphere. This, as is generally supposed, was in excess. 

 It made the air irrespirable ; no terrestrial creature could 

 live. But terrestrial animals must constitute the next step of 

 progress. The march of improvement had now gone as far 



