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SECONDAEY EOCKS. 



ERA OF THE CAEBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 



LAND FORMED I COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 



We now enter upon a new great epoch in the history of 

 our globe. There was now dry land. As a consequence 

 of this fact, there was fresh water; for rain, instead 

 of immediately returning to the sea, as formerly, was 

 now gathered in channels of the earth, and became 

 springs, rivers, and lakes. There was now a theatre 

 for the existence of land plants and animals, and it 

 remains to be inquired if these accordingly were pro- 

 duced. 



The Secondary Rocks, in which our further researches 

 are to be prosecuted, consist of a great and varied series, 

 resting, generally uncomformably, against flanks of the 

 upturned primary rocks, sometimes themselves consider- 

 ably inclined, at others, forming extensive basin-like 

 beds, nearly liorizontal ; in many places much broken 

 up and shifted by disturbances from below. They have 

 all been formed out of the materials of the older rocks, 

 by virtue of the wearing power of air and water, which 

 is still every day carrying down vast quantities of 

 the elevated matter of the globe into the sea. But the 

 separate strata ai-e each much more distinct in the matter 



