458 
COAL MINE IN BOHEMIA. 
A similar abundance of distinctly preserved 
vegetable remains, occurs throughout the other 
Coal fields of Great Britain. But the finest 
example I have ever witnessed, is that of the 
coal mines of Bohemia just mentioned. The most 
elaborate imitations of living foliage upon the 
painted ceilings of Italian palaces, bear no com- 
parison with the beauteous profusion of extinct 
vegetable forms, with which the galleries of these 
instructive coal mines are overhung. The roof 
is covered as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry, 
enriched with festoons of most graceful foliage, 
flung in wild, irregular profusion over every por- 
tion of its surface. The effect is heightened by 
the contrast of the coal-black colour of these 
vegetables, with the light ground work of the 
rock to which they are attached. The spectator 
feels himself transported, as if by enchantment, 
into the forests of another world; he beholds 
Trees, of forms and characters now unknow'H 
upon the surface of the earth, presented to his 
senses almost in the beauty and vigour of their 
primeval life; their scaly stems, and bending 
branches, with their delicate apparatus of foliage, 
are all spread forth before him ; little impaired 
by the lapse of countless Ages, and bearing 
faithful records of extinct systems of vegetation, 
which began and terminated in times of which 
these relics are the infallible Historians. 
Such are the grand natural Herbaria wherein 
