THE NEW RED SANDSTONE SYSTEM. 



707 



in water, which we find most abundant in a fossil state ; while the dicotyledonous tribes 

 had little capacity to resist its action, and their organic remains are comparatively rare. 

 The chief objection that can be made to the experiment is advanced by Count Sternberg, 

 that pure water, used by Dr. Lindley, may not have produced precisely the same chemical 

 effects upon the vegetation, as in the case of the coal-plants, which were immersed in 

 waters so impure and admixed as to have deposited the shale in which they are imbedded. 

 It follows, however, as a general conclusion, that a large mass of vegetable organisation 

 has probably perished, which was contemporaneous with the forms that are still extant, 

 and diverse from them ; so that the structures traceable must be regarded as a few speci- 

 mens only of the ancient flora of the earth, which have survived the catastrophe of 

 submergence. Yet nothing can be clearer, from the vast accumulations of carbonaceous 

 matter, and the gigantic size of its fossil plants, than the existence of landscapes, in far 

 remote ages, clothed with a vigorous and abundant vegetation, forests waving in the 

 breeze, as ample as those that now distinguish our humid equatorial districts. Still, as 

 far as evidence extends, there was as yet no song of birds no voice of any vertebral 

 animal to enliven the scene ; and the aspect of terrestrial nature, though imposing, 

 was sombre, better adapted to prepare fuel for man, than to. constitute his happy 

 dwelling. 



CHAPTER VIL 



THE NEW KED SANDSTONE 



T is common with the travellers of modern 

 times, in various regions of the globe, after 

 passing through expensive tracts of dense arid 

 noble forests, almost impenetrable through an 

 accumulation of brushwood and interlacing 

 creepers, to enter upon an open country, bare 

 of vegetation, and presenting upon its sandy 

 plains few of the forms of organic life. A 

 similar change in the aspect of terrestrial 

 nature is encountered upon an advance from 

 the carboniferous to the overlying system in 

 the grand series of formations. During the 

 deposition of the New Red Sandstone, the con- 

 dition of the earth appears to have been un- 

 favourable to organised existence, from the 

 paucity of the remains contained in it. These 

 are chiefly marine, with few traces of land 

 plants, indicating a state of the exposed solid 

 superficies remarkably different to that which, during the formation of the coal- 

 measures, was crowded with the stately forms of a vigorous vegetation. In another 

 respect, its strata strikingly and pleasingly contrast with the coal series ; for, instead of 

 the dark shales and black seams of the latter, we have variegated marls, red, green, and 

 blue ; sandstones, red and white ; and grits, brown, yellow, and cream-coloured. From 



Caverns at Nottingham Castle. 



