THE VEGETATION OF FORMER TIMES. 613 



and closely investigated spots on the earth's surface that the fossil remains found 

 there are not more than a minute fragment of the vegetation of periods long 

 elapsed. 



With these remarks we might mention that it is not beyond the range of possi- 

 bility that, in addition to the Vascular Cryptogams, Cycads, and Conifers growing on 

 peat-moors, plants of other habitats, especially those of fresh and salt water, or 

 perhaps of sand-dunes and river-banks, might be found in the strata of palaeozoic 

 times. But no one would doubt that among these would be Angiospermous Phane- 

 rogams, and this throws some light on plant remains which have come to us from 

 the mesozoic period. For example, in the upper layers of the chalk we find, in 

 addition to the plants of peat-moors, the inhabitants of a luxuriant forest-flora of 

 Angiospermous flowering plants. There are Planes, Birches, Beeches, Oaks, Poplars, 

 Willows, Fig and Laurel trees, Maples, Ivy and other Araliacese, Bread-fruit trees, 

 Tulip-trees and Magnolias, Cherry-trees, and Leguminosse of the division Csesal- 

 pinese. Palms, Rushes, and Grasses. If we do not believe in the theory that these 

 Angiosperms were first created in the mesozoic period, and still less in the greater 

 marvel that they have sprung from the Vascular Cryptogams, Cycads, and Conifers, 

 we are forced to the conclusion that they too must have existed as far back as the 

 palagozoic time. It is to be specially noted that not the slightest trace of inter- 

 mediate or transitional forms which might connect the aforesaid Angiospermic 

 Phanerogams with the Gymnosperms or -^vith the Vascular Cryptogams has been 

 found. One leaf is immediately recognized as belonging to a Tulip-tree, a second to 

 Maple, a third to a Fig-tree, a fourth to a Palm, &c., but no plant has been discovered 

 anywhere which would perhaps form a connecting link between the Palms or Figs 

 and the Conifers or Vascular Cryptogams. 



Even a cursory glance at the plant-forms named shows that they were members 

 of mixed forests. It may be assumed, however, that other plant communities peopled 

 the earth at the same time as these forests. The rocky terraces and boulders, as 

 well as the flat dry land, were certainly not destitute of vegetation. Nor is it 

 surprising that no fossil remains of the inhabitants of these places have remained. 

 The under-shrubs and herbs of a dry soil decompose immediately after their death, 

 and leave behind only formless humus, which mixes with the soil. Just as little 

 fossil remains will reach posterity of the Lichens and Mosses, Pinks and Composites, 

 Saxifrages and succulent plants which inhabit the rocks on the dry mountain- 

 slopes at the present day, as of the Tulips and Irises, Umbelliferse and Saltworts of 

 the steppe-flora; and a great mistake would be made if, millions of years afterwards, 

 it were reasoned from the lack of fossil remains of these plants that they could not 

 have existed in our time. It would be just as wrong for us to argue from the 

 absence of such plants in the strata of earlier periods that they had never existed 

 in those times. The same thing applies to most fresh-water and marine Algae, and 

 to the numberless saprophytes which effect the destruction of dead animal and 

 vegetable bodies above and under water, and thus maintain the eternal cycle of life 

 as a whole. Of the first-mentioned the only fossil remains which can be recognized 



