GOPPERT ON THE COAL FORMATION. 15 



islands, on which a tropical vegetation everywhere prevailed, then I 

 conceive the origin of the coal-deposits may be explained in the follow- 

 ing manner. These islands, like similar spots in our time, had their 

 mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, — their moist and dry, cooler and 

 warmer, shady and sunny localities. A tropical climate extended over 

 the whole, as we may justly conclude from the vegetation, everywhere 

 uniform in character, and only to be compared with that now growing 

 within the tropics : for the fossil plants in both hemispheres, — in 

 southern and northern Asia, at Ekatharinenburg on the Asiatic 

 border, in the Altai and in Siberia, over the whole continent of 

 northern Europe from beyond the Ural, in England, Scotland and 

 Ireland, as well as beyond the ocean, in North and South America, 

 and in New Holland — appear everywhere identical, if not in regard 

 to species, at least in the genera. Stigmaria is almost never wanting, 

 as well as Sigillaria, Sphenopteris, Pecopteris, &c. 



Vast forests were formed of theConiferse, the tree-like Lycopodiacese, 

 seventy to seventy-five feet in height and two or three feet in diameter, 

 the curiously formed Sigillarise, and the Calamites or gigantic Equi- 

 setacese, under whose shade numberless ferns, often too arborescent, 

 sprung up, and the singular Stigmaria ficoides unfolded itself,— with 

 its dome-shaped trunk expanding in forked branches often thirty feet 

 long and furnished with dichotomising thorny leaves projecting 

 at right angles, — well-adapted to appropriate to itself or cover up the 

 remains of other vegetables. According to the laws of vegetation 

 then prevailing, which were not different from those of existing nature, 

 and in consequence of the relations of climate, this insular flora covered 

 with its luxuriant growth, here the high arid plateaus, there recesses 

 in the hills, in other places the basins and valleys among the still 

 loftier ancient mountains. When this rich vegetation decayed, it was 

 immediately followed by a new growth, as now happens in the tropics ; 

 in moist localities also peat-like beds were formed, and thus in the 

 valleys and on the plains, at the foot and on the summits of the 

 mountains, on the plateaus and in the hollows, immense masses of 

 vegetable matter, the material of future coal-beds, were more or less 

 speedily accumulated, according as the soil, the situation and the 

 nature of the different plants favoured a more or less luxuriant 

 growth. 



If we now reflect that no mammalia, no birds, in short no animal 

 except a few air-breathing insects, enlivened these dull monotonous 

 woods, then we may form a picture not very wide of the truth, of 

 this melancholy scene — a scene, however, imposing from the part 

 which it has filled in the history of the globe (Brongniart) . For its 

 collected vegetation was buried in the strata which form the great 

 coal-formation, having been overwhelmed by the floods produced by 

 the changes in level resulting from elevations and depressions. Where 

 pebbles and detritus were wanting, the plants were converted into con- 

 tinuous seams of coal, butwhenmixedwithsandorclay they were inclosed 

 and preserved in the gradually consolidating shales and sandstones. For 

 my investigations, extended over large beds of coal, have for the first time 



