i82 ANCIENT PLANTS 



modern botany seems clearly to indicate the great im- 

 portance of this seemingly inexplicable spontaneity of 

 life. In environment alone the thoughtful student of 

 the present cannot find incentive enough for the great 

 changes and advances made by organisms in the course 

 of the world's history. The climate and purely phy- 

 sical conditions of the Coal Measure period were pro- 

 bably but little different from those in some parts of 

 the world to-day, but the plants themselves have funda- 

 mentally changed. True, their effect upon each other 

 must be taken into account, but this is a less active 

 factor with plants than with men, for we can imagine 

 nothing equivalent to citizenship, society, and education 

 in the plant communities, which are so vital in human 

 development. 



It seems to have been proved that plants and animals 

 may, at certain unknown intervals, " mutate "; and muta- 

 tion is a fine word to express our recent view of one 

 of the essential factors in evolution. But it is a cloak 

 for an ignorance avowedly less mitigated than when we 

 thought to have found a complete explanation of the 

 causes of evolution in " environment ". 



In a sketch such as the present, outlines alone are 

 possible, detail cannot be elaborated. If it has suggested 

 enough of atmosphere to show the vastness of the land- 

 scape spreading out before our eyes back into the past 

 and on into the future, the task has been accomplished. 

 There are many detailed volumes which follow out one or 

 other special line of enquiry along the highroads and by- 

 ways of this long traverse in creation. If the bird's-eye 

 view of the country given in this book entices some to 

 foot it yard by yard under the guidance of specialists 

 for each district, it will have done its part. While to 

 those who will make no intimate acquaintance with so 

 far off a land it presents a short account by a traveller, 

 so that they may know something of the main features 

 and a little of the romance of the fossil world. 



