THE SCENERY OF THE COAL PERIOD. 153 



pebbles, and transported to embankments sometimes thou- 

 sands of feet in thickness. The tombs of the Cephalasjris, 

 Pterichthys^Coccosteus, and Holoptychius of the Old World, 

 and of Onychodus, Machcer acanthus, AgassichtJtys, and Ei- 

 nodus of the New, were buried immemorable depths be- 

 neath the rubbish of a geological revolution. These were 

 the accumulations of the "Millstone Grit." Anon, the vio- 

 lence of Nature suffered a pause, and finer sediments only 

 were transported over the areas previously strewn with 

 sand and pebbles. Many alternations of finer and coarser 

 deposits thus succeed each other among the lower beds re- 

 posing immediately beneath the coal. 



In the course of ages the shallow sea became a marsh. 

 Now that a foothold for terrestrial vegetation was estab- 

 lished, the all-adaptive hand of Nature planted the soil 

 with many kinds of herbs and trees. Simultaneously, on 

 every side, innumerable germs spring up from the new- 

 made sediments. Vegetation, in varied types and family 

 alliances, starts forth at the fiat of creative energy, and the 

 world is dressed in a garment of shining verdure. No 

 provident hand had strewn the soil with the seeds of these 

 unfamiliar forms. The All -commanding had summoned 

 the tribes of plants from the shadowy realm of ideas, and 

 they stood forth in multitudinous array, clad in the newest 

 and brightest garments of Nature's exhaustless wardrobe 

 — mute, unconscious existences, but yet with life and or- 

 gans, beginning from the moment of their appearance to 

 play upon the elements which Omniscience had provided 

 for their elaboration. How carefully was the soil prepared 

 to encourage the luxuriant growth and wide dissemination 

 of these beautiful creatures ! Lifted above the level of the 

 sea, it maintained the humid condition most congenial to 

 the nature of the most luxuriant growers. The internal 

 heat of the earth, however, at this early period, warmed 



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