FRESHWATER WEEDS. 
57 
their peculiarities are too numerous to ren¬ 
der a mistake probable in assigning their 
true character. 
Many of the ancient ferns appear to have 
been water plants^ as is the case with the 
next family^, the Marsiliacece^ a race of small 
freshwater weeds to which has been assigned 
the pretty little fossil leaves called Spheno- 
phyllum found amidst the coal; and the 
representatives of another family, the chares 
of our present pools, are found in the clay 
and limestone beds of central France. 
This extinct vegetation as it is now re¬ 
stored in imagination, or as we see it 
depicted in engravings, exhibits a very naked 
aspect compared with the leafy foliage of 
the present. The paucity of the kinds, com¬ 
bined with the reed-like nature of their 
growth, contrasts with the boundless pro¬ 
fusion of form now adorning the landscape. 
We begin to perceive traces of the great 
argument,” which proves all former stages 
of organic existence to be but introductory 
to that better furnished platform, whereon a 
being endowed with mind was to be placed 
amid scenes calculated to win admiration, 
gratitude, and love for the bounteous Giver. 
