328 Ancient Vegetation of the Earth. 



extended, and mountains greatly elevated, fixed and determined 

 varied climates, and thus favoured diversity of beings. In this 

 way, in countries of little extent, the vegetable kingdom offered 

 us plants equally as diversifiedj one from another, as those found 

 growing at the present day. 



To the Coniferas, with their narrow durable leaves of sombre 

 green, were joined Birches, Poplars, Walnuts, and Maples, with 

 broad leaves of a more lively tint ; and in the shade of these trees, 

 on the borders of waters or upon their surface flourished herba- 

 ceous plants, analogous to those which at present embellish our 

 fields by the diversity of their forms and colours, and the variety 

 of which renders them suitable to satisfy the different tastes of an 

 infinity of animals, of all classes. 



The forests of the ancient world, like those of our epoch, served, 

 indeed, as a refuge for a vast number of animals, more or less 

 analogous to those which still inhabit our globe. Thus Ele- 

 phants, Rhinoceroses, Wild Boars, Bears, Lions, and Stags of all 

 forms and of all statures, have successively inhabited them ; while 

 birds, reptiles, and numerous insects, complete this map of na- 

 ture, as she presented herself, upon such parts of the earth as 

 were elevated above the level of the oceans ; the whole forming 

 a scene equally beautiful and equally varied as that which is still 

 witnessed upon the emerged portions of our globe. 



On the contrary, at the dawn of the creation of organized be- 

 ings, the terrestrial surface, divided, without doubt, into an infinity 

 of islands, low, and with a climate almost uniform, was, it is true, 

 covered with immense vegetables ; but these trees, differing little 

 from each other in their aspect, and the tint of their foliage ; de- 

 prived of flowers and of those fruits with brilliant colours which 

 so highly adorn many of our large trees, must have imprinted, 

 upon that vegetation, a monotony not interrupted even by those 

 small herbaceous plants that, by the elegance of their flowers, 

 constitute the ornament of our groves. 



Add to this that neither mammifer, or bird, nor any animal, in 

 short, was present to enliven these dense forests, and we may be 

 able to form a very just idea of this primitive nature ; sombre, 

 cheerless and silent, but at the same time so imposing by its 

 grandeur, and by the space which it has been called to fill in the 

 history of the globe. 



