OF CREATION. 85 



trunk, forming what are called tree ferns, well known 

 in the Australian islands and colonies, and met with 

 also in other countries where the conditions of vege- 

 tation are equally favourable for these plants. 



There is nothing in the appearance of such leaves 

 or their structure which distinguishes them very espe- 

 cially from the ferns of a later period or of the pre- 

 sent day. Their great preponderance over all other 

 fossils in the shales, proves how large a proportion they 

 occupied of the whole flora, or at least of that portion 

 capable of preservation ; and the presence, also, of 

 stems and trunks, marked with scars like those ob- 

 served on modern tree ferns, shows that, like these, 

 they attained a very large size, and grew in a very 

 similar manner. 



Two well-marked genera of lofty forest trees are 

 almost the only other plants which appear, from their 

 great abundance, to have contributed in large propor- 

 tion to the solid matter of the coal. Of these, one, 

 called by Geologists Lepidodendron* (see frontispiece,) 

 seems to have risen to a great height from the ground, 

 and to have given off branches at a very acute angle. 

 The whole stem was covered with scars, or marks of 

 the places from which leaves had fallen, and the leaves 

 or fronds themselves seem to have been borne in long 

 rows, arranged in a different manner from that ob- 

 served in existing trees. The most probable account 

 of this tree is, that it bore a considerable resemblance 

 in some respects to a particular group of pines, but 

 that it exhibited in other matters, and those too of 

 great importance in classification, analogies with the 



, gen. Xe7rio (lepidos)^ a scale; dtvdpov (dendron\ a tree : the 

 trunk of this tree being marked along its whole length with scales or scars. 



