PERMIAN AGE AND CLOSE OP THE PALEOZOIC. 173 



of the far-back Lower Devonian, and of all intervening 

 ages up to the present day, having been very much 

 alike. The great reed-like Calamites have had a dif- 

 ferent fate. In their grander forms they make their 

 last appearance in the Permian, where they culminate 

 in great ribbed stems, sometimes nearly a foot in 

 diameter, and probably of immense height. The brakes 

 of these huge mares'-tails which overspread the lower 

 levels of the Persian in Europe, would have been to 

 us what the hayfields of Brobdingnag were to Gulliver. 

 The Lepidodendra also swarmed, though in diminished 

 force; but the great SigillariaB of the coal are absent, 

 or only doubtfully present. Another feature of the 

 Permian woods was the presence of many pine-trees 

 different in aspect from those of the coal period. Some 

 of these are remarkable for their slender and delicate 

 branches and foliage.* Others have more dense and 

 scaly leaves, and thick short cones.f Both of these 

 styles of pines are regarded as distinct, on the one 

 hand, from those of the coal formation, and on the 

 other from those of the succeeding Trias. I have 

 shown, however, many years ago, that in the upper 

 coal formation of America there are branches of pine- 

 trees very similar to Walchia, and, on the other hand, 

 the Permian pines are not very remote in form and 

 structure from some of their modern relations. The 

 pines of the first of the above-mentioned types 

 (Walchia) may indeed be regarded as allies of the 

 modern Araucarian pines of the southern hemisphere, 

 * Walchia t Ulmannia. 



