174 Tb.S STORY OP THE EARTH AND MAN. 



and of the old conifers of the Carboniferous. Those of 

 the second type (Ulmannia) may be referred to the 

 same group with the magnificent Sequoias or Red- 

 woods of California. 



It is a curious indication of the doubts which some- 

 times rest on fossil botany, that some of the branches 

 of these Permian pines, when imperfectly preserved, 

 have been described as sea-weeds, while others have 

 been regarded as club-mosses. It is true, however, 

 that the resemblance of some of them to the latter 

 class of plants is very great ; and were there no older 

 pines, we might be pardoned for imagining in the Per- 

 mian a transition from club-mosses to pines. Un- 

 fortunately, however, we have pines nearly as far back 

 in geological time as we have club-mosses ; and, in so 

 far as we know, no more like the latter than are the 

 pines of the Permian, so that this connection fails us. 

 In all probability the Permian forests are much less 

 perfectly known to us than those of the coal period, so 

 that we can scarcely make comparisons. It appears 

 certain, however, that the Permian plants are much 

 more closely related to the coal plants than to those of 

 the next succeeding epoch, and that they are not so 

 much a transition from the one to the other as the 

 finishing of the older period to make way for the newer. 



But we must reserve some space for a few remarks 

 on the progress and termination of the Palaeozoic as 

 a whole, and on the place which it occupies in the 

 world's history. These remarks we may group around 

 the central question, What is the meaning or value of 



