Chap. XX.] 
GENERAL PALAEOZOIC SUCCESSION. 
479 
as well as the most general researches, afford clear signs, in this respect, 
of a progress in creation ? 
In the Silurian era, as will presently be insisted on, there are countless 
proofs of shores ; and yet there is not a trace of a Land Plant, washed from 
the adjacent lands, until we reach the uppermost limits of the system. The 
signs of terrestrial produce, augmenting in the Devonian epoch, become 
universally abundant in the Carboniferous period, as marked by a copious 
terrestrial flora. This earliest luxuriant tree-vegetation, the pabulum of 
our coal-fields, is also specially remarkable for its spread over many lati- 
tudes ; and together with it occur the same common species of marine 
shells, all indicating a more or less equable climate from polar to inter- 
tropical regions, — a phenomenon wholly at variance with the present dis- 
tribution of animal and vegetable life over the surface of the planet. 
Together with the earliest profuse land-vegetation Reptiles first appear, 
and thus substantiate the proofs of another rise in creation. 
Lastly, while the Permian era was distinguished by the disappearance 
of the greater number of the primeval types, and by essential modifications 
of those which remained, it still bore a strong resemblance, through the 
genera of its plants and animals, to the Carboniferous period ; whilst, in 
unison with all the great facts elicited by our survey of the older strata, 
it was typified by the appearance of an animal of a high grade — the Pro- 
terosaurus, a large Thecodont Reptile, allied (according to Owen) to the 
living Monitor. 
In speaking of the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian 
rocks, let me however repeat that, whilst each of the three latter groups 
occupies wide spaces in certain regions, the Carboniferous alone approaches 
to the value of the Silurian in representing length of time, or succession of 
animal life in the crust of the globe. When the Silurian System was first 
divided (1833-34) into lower and upper parts, our acquaintance with 
younger formations merely sufficed to show a complete distinction between 
its fauna and that of the Carboniferous rocks, from which it is separated 
in England by the thick accumulations of the Old Red Sandstone. At 
that period the shelly and slaty rocks of Devonshire were not known to 
be the equivalents of such Old Red Sandstone ; still less had the relations 
and fossil contents of all the strata now called Permian been ascertained. 
Judging from the fossils collected, it was then, however, stated that the 
Lower Silurian contained organic remains very distinct from those of the 
Upper Silurian ; and yet I united the two groups in a system, because 
they were characterized throughout by a common fades. This was called 
a ' system ' because it was characterized by a profusion of the peculiar 
animals Trilobites, Cystideans, and Graptolites, together with Orthides and 
Pentameri of types wholly unknown in the Carboniferous rocks: and, 
whilst Fishes were seen to exist in the intermediate masses of Old Red 
Sandstone, no traces of them could be detected below the uppermost zone 
