86 



SECONDARY ROCKS. 



such as the vascular cryptogamic plants, like the 

 ferns, equisetaceae (horsetail), rushes, &c. ; and, 

 what is worth remarking, these plants must have 

 attained a magnitude far beyond those of the same 

 class now existing. For example, M. Brougniar* 

 observed, in the coal strata of Dortmond, stems of 

 such vegetables more than 40 feet long ; and they 

 have been found, in the coal-beds of England, nearly 

 50 feet in length. These and other facts have led 

 geologists to believe that the vegetation of the car- 

 boniferous group was produced in climates at least 

 as warm as those of the tropics ; for such is the 

 perfect state of preservation of the plants, the ten- 

 derest leaves having sustained no injury, that we 

 cannot believe them to have been wafted from trop- 

 ical regions. 



Mr. Philips remarks (Geology, vol. L, p. 158), that 

 " the organic remains of the coal measures consist 

 of very many races of plants, abundance of zoo- 

 phyta, multitudes of mollusca, some Crustacea, 

 many fishes, but, as far as we yet know, neither 

 reptiles, birds, nor mammalia. Many of the plants, 

 indeed by far the greater number, are of terrestrial j 

 growth ; all the zoophyta, and nearly all the mol- j 

 lusca, Crustacea, and fishes, are marine. The ex- 

 cepted mollusca occur among the remains of plants 

 swept down from the land, and the excepted Crus- 

 tacea are those referred to a fresh-water origin. 

 The plants are partly very similar to existing ra- 

 ces, as the large group of ferns generally, and partly 

 appear altogether unlike them, as the large-furrow- 

 ed stems of sigillaria, the quincuncially ornamented I 

 stigmaria," &c. 



The following is a brief summary of the plants : | 



Equisetaceae . . 60 species. 



Filices .... 100 " 

 Lyeopodiaceae 60 " 



Phanerogamia mon. 10 " 



