FLORA. 207 
tion. The multiple forms which clothed the Calamites 
radiatus in Bear Island all reappeared in the more recent 
stage of the lower carboniferous strata—I would say in the 
superincumbent schists (dachschiffer)—of - Moravia; but 
then this type lost itself, without our being able to cite 
instead of it any form which would be analogous to it in 
the middle carboniferous strata. And it is the same with the 
Knorria, the Cardiopteris, and Palaeopterts. These are facts 
which decidedly protest against the doctrine of the incessant 
and gradually progressive transformation of species which 
the partisans of that theory ought not to ignore. Their 
importance here is so much the greater that manifestly the 
plants of Bear Island had to live under other conditions of 
light than those of the Vosges, or of Ireland ; as they have 
had to support a long winter night. It is indeed surprising 
that evergreen trees, as in all probability were the Lepido- 
dendron, and the plants so amply leaved as the Cardiop- 
teris frondosa, should have accommodated themselves to 
so prolonged a darkness; but in regard to this we must 
take into consideration the circumstance that the flora of 
Bear Island is composed almost entirely of cryptogams,* 
which could pass from the light more easily and for a 
longer time, than could phanerogams have done. Beyond 
this the climate of Bear Island must have been as favour- 
able to the growth of vegetables as was that which pre- 
vailed in Ireland and in the Vosges, and that, although 
this island is situated twenty-six and a half degrees further 
north, since the species which they include are decidedly 
as large and as luxuriant in appearance, and that they have 
produced a layer of coal as thick as any found anywhere, 
besides at a corresponding level but in less high latitudes,t 
the heat was then still at this time distributed in an 
* Two Carpolithes, according to Dr Heer, alone belonged to the phanerogams, 
+ The yellowish sandstone grit of Ireland presents only some thin beds of carbon in 
the immediate neighbourhood of the plants. In the Vosges, and generally in all the 
inferior carbouiferons strata, we meet in no part with layers of coal of great magnitude, 
Such layers begin to show themselves only from the point of departure at the middle 
carboniferous strata, which haye in consequence been designated as those of the period 
of the productive formation of coal. 
