666 



HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



LIFE OF THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD. 



Plants. — Forests and jungles made of Cryptogams of the tribes of Ferns, 

 Equiseta, and Lycopods, along with Gymnosperms related to the Cycads and 

 Yews, and covering interminable marshy plains and fields, were the striking 



1031. 



Carboniferous vegetation. Eussell Smith. 



feature of the coal era. Though desolated again and again, either universally 

 or partially, by the returning waters, and over the large submerged areas kept 

 desolate for many centu.ries or series of centuries again and again, the ver- 

 dure in all its luxuriance spread over the emerging land, with little change 

 in the foliage, for other times of luxuriant growth and of peat-making. Only 

 toward the close of the era, when the Permian period was commencing, had 

 the forests lost the larger part of their great trees of the tribe of Lycopods. 



Unlike the present world, there were no Angiosperms and no Palms. It 

 is not positively known that there were Endogens of any kind. There was 

 certainly no grass over the fields, the most common of Endogens. With 

 Angiosperms and Endogens absent, there were no conspicuous flowers, no 

 beautiful foliage except that of the Ferns and fern-like trees, and no fruit 



