SEE 
CHAPTER II 
THE LIFE, HISTORY OF FERNS 
FERNS, as compared with flowering plants, are inconceivably older, 
since, in very similar forms to those of our present species, they 
existed in those far-distant times when our coal measures were 
formed, the evidence of which is incontestable, since the great bulk 
of such coal consists of the debris of Ferns and their allies, the 
mosses and Equisetums of that day, the recognizable remains of 
which are frequently clearly preserved in the coal itself. There is, 
practically, no doubt whatever that these old Ferns were evolved 
from sea-weeds ; but, judging by the very material difference be- 
tween the two tribes of plants, even in the carboniferous age, it 
must be assumed that another immense period of time must have 
elapsed during the evolution of the one into the other, so immense, 
indeed, that, as in the case of the subsequent evolution of 
flowering plants from Ferns and their allies, the mind entirely 
fails to grasp it. Modern evolutionary scientists are practically 
unanimous in assuming that life must have begun in the shape 
of some very simple type of organic cell, engendered, how we know 
not, in the originally warm ocean waters. 
Simple, however, as this must have been, it was yet endowed 
with some subtle power of modification and adjustment to its 
environment which, in course of time, led it to assume many 
shapes, varying from that of a simple crawling cell, like our present- 
day Атса, to ciliated ones, capable, by means of motile hairs, of 
swimming actively about in search of food. Then the cells, instead 
of dividing and separating into distinct unicellular individuals, 
must have retained their union and built up compound bodies on 
varied lines, and with definite vital organs, so as to fit them for 
varied conditions and environments; and at this point we may 
assume that the two great branches of the organic tree of life, the 
plants and animals, began to diverge and to evolve on separate 
and distinct lines. We may, then, in imagination, view a warm 
ocean, peopled with marine animals of many forms, and weeds of 
perhaps equal diversity. The land, however, has not so far settled 
down to stable or fairly stable conditions; but in time we see 
9 

