86 
SECONDARr 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. Brougniart 
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 chmates 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. PhiHps remarks (Geology, vol. i., 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 
growth ; all the zoophyta, and nearly all the mol- 
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 
stigmaria," &c. 
The following is a brief summary of the plants : 
Equisetaceae . . 60 species. 
FiUces .... 100 " 
Lycopodiaceae . 60 " 
Phanerogamia mon. 10 " 
