84 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



are uniformly small ; but, as the resemblance in this 

 case is simply one of general form, and the great ma- 

 jority of other trees seem to possess no living type 

 to which they can be referred, it is by no means 

 impossible that these also may be completely lost. 

 One example of them is seen in a plant, fragments 

 of which are extremely common in the coal-measures, 

 and which has been called Calamite* (fig. 30). 



The remains of calamites consist of jointed frag- 

 ments, which were originally cylindrical, but are now 

 Fig. 30 almost always crushed arid flattened. 

 They resemble very closely, in gene- 

 ral appearance, the common jointed 

 reed growing in marshes, and called 

 Equisetum, or mare^s tail ; but, in- 

 stead of being confined to a small 

 size, they would seem to have formed 

 trees having a stem sometimes more 

 CALAMITE. than a foot in diameter, and jointed 

 branches and leaves of similar gigantic proportions. 

 They were evidently soft and succulent, and very 

 easily crushed. They seem to have grown in great 

 multitudes near the place where the coal is now 

 accumulated ; and, though often broken, they seldom 

 bear marks of having been transported from a dis- 

 tance. 



The calamites, although common fossils in the coal- 

 measures in all places where those rocks appear, are 

 by no means so abundantly present as the fronds or 

 leaves of ferns ; and these latter seem, as has been al- 

 ready observed, to have belonged to that tribe of ferns, 

 species of which grow to a great height and on a lofty 



* KaXttjuo (calamof), a reed. 



