334 Ancient Vegetation of the Earth. 



The archipelagos, situated between the tropicks, such as the 

 islands of the great Pacifick ocean, or the Antilles, are, then, the 

 points of the globe which at the present time present vegetation 

 the most analogous to that which existed upon the earth when 

 the vegetable kindom commenced, for the first time, to develop 

 itself thereon. 



Detailed examination of the vegetables which accompany the 

 coal cannot fail, therefore, to. induce the inference that at this re- 

 mote epoch the surface of the earth, in the countries where are 

 found those vast depots of fossil carbon with which we are most 

 familiar, namely, in Europe and North America, offered the same 

 climacterick conditions which now exist in the archipelagos of 

 the equinoctial regions ; and probably a geographical configura- 

 tion little dijfferent. 



When we consider the number and thickness of the layers 

 which constitute most of the coal formations, and examine the 

 changes that, from first to last, have taken place in the specifick 

 forms of those vegetables of which they have been constituted, 

 we cannot fail to see that this stupendous primitive vegetation, 

 during a long interval, must have covered with its dense forests 

 all parts of the globe which were at that period elevated above 

 the sea ; for all these present themselves with the same charac- 

 teristicks in Europe and America ; and equinoctial Asia, as well 

 as New Holland, seem therefore to have participated, in this gen- 

 eral uniformity of the structure of vegetables. 



Nevertheless, this primitive vegetable existence promptly dis- 

 appeared, to give place to a new creation, composed of beings of 

 an organization less extraordinary than the preceding, but almost 

 equally different from such as flourish at the present day. 



To what cause can we attribute the destruction of all the plants 

 which characterize this remarkable vegetation ? 



Is it due to some violent revolution of the globe ? Did it arise 

 from a gradual change of the physical conditions necessary to 

 their existence ; a change in part arising from the presence of 

 these vegetables themselves ? These questions cannot be re- 

 solved in the present state of our knowledge upon the subject. 



Certain it is, however, that the deposition of the last layers of 

 the coal formation was followed by the destruction of all the 

 species which constituted this primitive vegetation, and particu- 

 larly of those gigantick trees of peculiar structure, as the Lycopo- 



