122 Scientific Intelligence. 
ornament, namely, those flowers with brilliant envelops which belong 
to Giicer” all the plants of our period. All the vegetables of the first 
geologica al periods were in fact eae se to our firs and ferns, ae 
habit and elegant foliage form all their 
In these ancient times of geological anew: we may farther sid. 
eat periods ; the one nearest our own times, during which 
most essential characters to those now existing, that they may be easily 
classified in ai natural families. have just named; the other, more 
ancient, to w the vegetables belong that have produced great 
combustible. The latter recede much more widely from actnally living 
‘orms, enter with more difficulty into known families, evidently con- 
stitute other families altogether distinct from those of our actual creation, 
families whose existence was not prolonged beyond this first geological _ 
eriod. | 
The singular pid totais and great dimensions of these first inhab- 
itants of our soil, ong thrown much obscurity over the great classes 
of the existing veguiatie kingdom. Every day, however, the study of 
em is advancing, and now we can no‘longer doubt that these gigantic 
th ng, ) 
vegetables, so remarkable by their extraordinary forms and by their 
structure, constitute special families, allied, saws: to the ferns and 
ohtabi (that is to say, belonging tot divisions of vascu 
peri of 
‘ereation of living beings, the v: was composed only of 
plants belonging to the two ¢ lasses of that mi pa ished by 
the simplest structure. These eaten Ma sen apesil were of 
— dimensions, and thé ‘greater —_ seared families now 
exti 
At eater period, these two great clases still —— vs exist alone 
on the earth, ~ ie forms hier os more to those 
which were to anaes chat ue epoch did not en exist, > 
ra during this latter sang vegetation assumes characters es 
to those it now presents. The more perfect vegetables, known 
by ie name of angiospermous phanerogams, appeared in gre eat numbers, 
and the vegetable kingdom is not distinguishable from that now existing 
but by characters of detail, or by ee ei to those widieh 
diversities of climate still produce on the e 
we now compare the — es of che “families which, like the 
ferns and Conifere, have been perpetuated during all the geological 
periods, from the most ancient up to the — we perceive that 8 
as belong to the most remote creations, are most allied to the plants’ of 
those families which now inhabit regions of Umpouthieiying ¢ebae 
ae 
