280 HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LANES. 



plants. Fossils have been met with in the Coal 

 Measures which are helieyed to he the flowers of 

 extinct species of grasses. 



Ferns have an antiquity greater still, and second 

 only to that of their allies the Cluh Mosses. As 

 far hack as the Devonian or Old Eed Sandstone 

 epoch, we meet with such magnificent examples that 

 we are warranted in believing they are even older 

 than this period, if it he true that the simpler forms 

 always precede the more complex. In the Coal 

 Measures they form the most beautiful, as well as 

 the commonest of fossils, and it is not too much to 

 say that the motive-power of Great Britain, derived 

 from her magnificent seams of coal, is due originally 

 to the ferns and club-mosses of the Carboniferous 

 epoch. From that time to this we never lose sight 

 of ferns, and how much they have been differentiated 

 in the interval is evident from the general similarity 

 of the fossil ferns of the Coal Measures in every 

 country, and the wonderful variety and number of 

 species yielded by the same countries now. More 

 species of ferns live at the present time than during 

 any other period of the earth's history. 



We do not propose giving a detailed account of 

 our British ferns. The young beginner will find a 

 pleasant, popular, and sufficiently exhaustive de- 

 scription of them in a cheap and attractive little book 

 written by Mrs. Lankester, called ' A Plain and Easy 

 Account of British Ferns.' One cannot be surprised 

 that this class of plants should have obtained so 



