THE NATIONAL, GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



425 







f 





Photograph by Earle Harrison 



NATIVE MOUNTAIN WOMEN COME FROM MILES AROUND TO THE COMPANY COMMIS- 

 SARY TO TRADE! MONEY IS RARELY USED, AS THEY GIVE EOR 

 MERCHANDISE BUTTER, EGGS, AND CHICKENS 



the great Author has written in the rocks, 

 and to translate the books that He has 

 compiled in the running- brooks, find the 

 wonderful story of earth history told in 

 twelve great chapters representing as 

 many eras in geological time. 



As we descend the coal-mine shaft, we 

 begin to leaf backward in the great book 

 of Nature. The first chapter we come to 

 is the last one in the book, and it begins 

 with the advent of man on the earth. 

 Next to that is the chapter which gives 

 the story of the age of mammals. It 

 takes the two chapters beyond this to tell 

 us the story of the age of reptiles. Then 

 we come to the fifth chapter from the 

 end, or the seventh from the beginning, 



and it tells us the remarkable story of 

 coal. 



In thus leafing backward in the book of 

 the ages, as we descend the shaft, we scan 

 millions of years of geological history. 



The chapter which tells us of the coal 

 age is an amazing account of a wonderful 

 time. We find that there were many 

 kinds of fishes existing in those times, 

 but that there are few evidences of other 

 than gill-breathing creatures upon the 

 earth. Not a single specimen of animal 

 life of that era has survived to this time, 

 but there was a vegetation of unbeliev- 

 able abundance and size. 



Many of the plants which existed then 

 were plainly the ancestors of plants 



