236 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Socrety. 
Carboniferous times, intersected by lagoons and swamps, was 
clothed with a dense growth of Lepidodendra, Sigillaria, 
Calamites, and ferns, and the distant hills (which somehow 
or other never seemed to be very far away) were covered 
with primeval forests of pine. Sometimes a restored view 
was produced which vividly portrayed all these features, and 
which was generally further embellished by the addition of 
some living creatures in the foreground and plenty of 
fumaroles giving off vapour, wherever space could be found 
for them in the picture. 
Now as to the Lepidodendra, Sigillaric, Calamites, and 
ferns, I have little to say. Almost certainly many of these 
occupied low-lying swampy situations—but to the back- 
ground of pines I must entirely dissent. 
When we know that Araucarioxylon Brandlingit is the 
wood of Cordaites,on what form of argument can we any 
longer base our belief that the other large stems put in that 
genus or in Dadoxylon, belonged to a different class of 
plants ? 
In all the divisions of the Carboniferous formation where 
these large so-called Araucarioxylon trunks have been found, 
we also get Cordaites leaves, but never any traces of Conifer- 
ous trees, which surely would have been met with had they 
existed. I can see little reason to doubt that the other 
Araucarioxylon stems are also the trunks of Cordattes. 
It is rather curious that the first trace of true Conifers 
which has been met with in Britain, was a small specimen 
of Walchia imbricata, Schimper, from the Upper Coal- 
Measures, where, strangely enough, none of these large trunks 
have been found; but if we grant that these large trunks were 
the stems of Cordaites, they must have existed at that time 
also, for Cordaites is frequent in the Upper Coal-Measures. 
Cordaites, though gymnospermous, cannot be classed with 
any existing group. 
To return to our picture again, I would suggest that the 
pines on the hills should be replaced by Cordaites, and 
further, that these should be transplanted from the high 
ground to the low-lying tracts, leaving the ideal hills for the 
occupation of more ideal tenants. 
