THE ORIGIN OF COAL 



341 



prostrated by the weight of years; the air is sultry, 

 moist, heavy, strongly impregnated with a moldy 

 smell; and the density of the foliage barely admits 

 a few sunbeams to flicker over the surface of the 

 stagnant pools. 

 "Everywhere profound silence. No song of bird 



Imaginary View of a Forest of the Coal Epoch 



bursts forth from the foliage of those tall fern-trees, 

 for the bird is not yet in existence. No foot of quad- 

 ruped treads the ground, for the quadruped with its 

 coat of fur will not come until much later. Some 

 lizards lurking in the rock-fissures, some large drag- 

 on-flies at the water's edge, some odious scorpions 

 under the heaps of dead leaves — -that is all the ani- 

 mal-life to be found in the forests that gave us our 

 coal." 



