PLANTS IN THE COAL FORMATION. 479 
Conclusion. 
Besides these Genera which have been enu- 
merated, there are many others whose nature is 
still more obscure, and of which no traces have 
been found among existing vegetables, nor in 
any strata more recent than the Carboniferous 
series.* Many years must elapse before the 
character of these various remains of the pri- 
meval vegetation of the Globe can be fully un- 
derstood. The plants which have contributed 
most largely to the highly-interesting and impor- 
tant formation of Coal, are referrible principally 
to the Genera whose history we have attempted 
briefly to elucidate : viz. Calamites, Ferns, Ly- 
copodiaceae, Sigillarise, and Stigmariae. These 
materials have been collected chiefly from the 
carboniferous strata of Europe. The same kind 
of fossil plants are found in the coal mines of 
N. America, and we have reason to believe 
that similar remains occur in Coal formations of 
the same Epoch, under very diflerent Latitudes, 
and in very distant quarters of the Globe, e. g. 
in India, and New Holland, in Melville Island, 
and Baffin's Bay. 
The most striking conclusions to which the 
present state of our knowledge has led, respect - 
* Some of the most abundant of these have been classed under 
the names of AsterophylHtes, (see PI. 1 , Figs. 4. 5.) from the 
stellated disposition of the leaves around the branches. 
