Antediluvian %oology and Botany. 267 



Accumulations of trees, called " subterranean forests," may 

 be traced at intervals, along our eastern coasts. Some of 

 them, apparently, are the remains of forests which clothed the 

 surface of our soil prior to the last great geological epoch. 

 Most of the trees of this class, although broken off, over- 

 whelmed by tremendous violence, and often flattened by the 

 pressure of diluvial and alluvial deposits, appear to occupy 

 their original sites ; their stumps still remain rooted in the 

 soil on which they evidently once flourished. These lignites 

 have been much confounded with others of obvious postdilu- 

 vian lacustrine origin. 



Mosses, confe7'vcE, and other equally delicate vegetable sub- 

 stances, preserved in agate and chalcedony, have been ex- 

 amined by Dr. Mac Culloch, who is inclined to refer their 

 origin to a period nearly coeval with the earliest existence 

 of organic matter. 



Naturalists have often failed in their endeavours to iden- 

 tify the antediluvian plants with those now existing. They evi- 

 dently flourished under a warm climate ; but botanists hesitate 

 to pronounce upon the species, or even the genera. In one 

 instance, lately, a fossil plant has been determined with unusual 

 precision. Under the name Trichomanes rotundatus, Mr. 

 Lindley has described a vegetable discovered within a nodule 

 of argillaceous ironstone, which plant he does not hesitate to 

 identify closely with one which is now only known recent in 

 the deep forests of New Zealand. 



Those who take an interest in comparative botany expect, 

 with much satisfaction. The Fossil Flora of Great Britain^ by 

 Mr. Lindley and Dr. Hutton. 



ZOOPHYTES, 



which form the link between vegetables and shellfish, are 

 little less obscure than the plants ; and we are again struck 

 with the want of agreement between the organic productions 

 of the ancient and of the present world. As far as the inves- 

 tigation has been pursued, it would seem that the zoophytes 

 of those remote and mysterious times were not less numerous 

 and beautiful than those of our own days. 



Mr. Parkinson examined 176 fossil corals, and found nearly 

 the whole differed from any that are now known. " In my 

 attempt," says this able observer, " to preserve a parallel 

 between the recent and the fossil species, I have been most 

 completely foiled. Indeed, so little could this parallel be 

 preserved, that I am under the necessity of acknowledging I 

 am not certain of the existence of the recent analogue of any 

 one mineralised coral." 



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