NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 87 



discovered, which, as far as English naturalists who have 

 seen them can determine, are undistinguishable from 

 certain oolite and lias fossils of Europe." ^■'' 



The dry land of this age presented cycadea^, '* a 

 beautiful class of plants between the palms and conifers, 

 having a tall, straight trunk, terminating in a magni- 

 ficent crown of foliage." t There were tree ferns, but in 

 smaller proportion than in former ages ; also equisetacere, 

 lilia, and coniferte. The vegetation was generally ana- 

 logous to that of the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, 

 which seems to argue a climate (we must remember, a 

 universal climate) between the tropical and tempei-ate. 

 It was, however, sufficiently luxuriant in some instances 

 to produce thin seams of coal, for such are found in the 

 oolite formation of both Yorkshire and Sutherland. 

 The sea, as for ages before, contained algse, of which, 

 however, only a few species have been preserved to our 

 day. The lower classes of the inhabitants of the ocean 

 were unprecedentedly abundant. The polypiaria were 

 in such abundance as to form whole strata of themselves. 

 The crinoidea and echinites wxre also extremely 

 numerous. Shell mollusks, in hundreds of new species, 

 occupied the bottoms of the seas of those ages, while of 

 the swimming shell-iish, ammonites and belemnites, 

 there were also many scores of varieties. The belemnite 

 here calls for some particular notice. It commences in 

 tlie oolite, and terminates in the next formation. It is 

 an elongated, conical shell, terminating in a point, and 

 having, at the larger end, a cavity foi- the residence of 

 the animal, with a series of air-chambers below. The 

 animal^ placed in the upper cavit}- , could raise or dejiress 

 itself in the water at pleasure by a pneumatic operation 



'■■- ^Iiirchison's "Silurian System," p. 583. 

 t Bucklantl. 



