92 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



an important share in the composition of the archilithic 

 Algse flora. 



If we now aarain take into consideration the flora of the 

 primordial period, which was exclusively formed by the 

 group of Algse, we can see that it is not improbable that 

 its four subordinate classes had a share in the composition 

 of those submarine forests of the primaeval oceans, similar 

 to that which the four types of vegetation — trees with 

 trunks, flowering shrubs, grass, and tender leaf-ferns and 

 mosses — at present take in the composition of our recent 

 land forests. 



We may suppose that the submarine tree forests of the 

 primordial perfod were formed by the huge Brown Algaj, . 

 or Fucoidese. The ■ many-coloured flowers at the foot of 

 these gigantic trees were represented by the gay Red 

 Algse, or Floridese. The green grass between was formed 

 by the hair-like bunches of Green Algse, or Chloroalga^. 

 Finally, the tender foliage of ferns and mosses, which at 

 present cover the ground of our forests, fiJl the crevices left by 

 other plants, and even settle on the trunks of the trees, at 

 that time probably had representatives in the moss and fern- 

 like Siphonese, in the Caulerpa and Bryopsis, from among 

 the class of the primary Algae, Protophyta, or Archephyceiie. 



With regard to the relationships of the different classes of 

 Algae to one another and to other plants, it is exceedingly 

 probable that the Primary Alga3, or Archephyceae, as already 

 remarked, form the common root of the pedigree, not merely 

 for the different classes of Algae, but for the whole vege- 

 table kingdom. On this account they may with justice be 

 designated as primaeval plants, or Protophyta. 



Out of the naked vegetable Monera, in the beginning of the 



