In connection with the varieties which have been distinguished in the families of the conifers, calamites, and sigillariae, Sir William Dawson makes the following observations:  “I believe that there was a considerably wide range of organisation in cordaitinae as well as in calamites and sigillariae, and that it will eventually be found that there were three lines of connection between the higher cryptogams (flowerless) and the phaenogams (flowering), one leading from the lycopodes by the sigillariae, another leading by the cordaites, and the third leading from the equisetums by the calamites.  Still further back the characters, afterwards separated in the club-mosses, mare’s-tails, and ferns, were united in the rhizocarps, or, as some prefer to call them, the heterosporous filicinae.”

In concluding this chapter dealing with the various kinds of plants which have been discovered as contributing to the formation of coal-measures, it would be as well to say a word or two concerning the climate which must have been necessary to permit of the growth of such an abundance of vegetation.  It is at once admitted by all botanists that a moist, humid, and warm atmosphere was necessary to account for the existence of such an abundance of ferns.  The gorgeous waving tree-ferns which were doubtless an important feature of the landscape, would have required a moist heat such as does not now exist in this country, although not necessarily a tropical heat.  The magnificent giant lycopodiums cast into the shade all our living members of that class, the largest of which perhaps are those that flourish in New Zealand.  In New Zealand, too, are found many species of ferns, both those which are arborescent and those which are of more humble stature.  Add to these the numerous conifers which are there found, and we shall find that a forest in that country may represent to a certain extent the appearance presented by a forest of carboniferous vegetation.  The ferns, lycopods, and pines, however, which appear there, it is but fair to add, are mixed with other types allied to more recent forms of vegetation.

There are many reasons for believing that the amount of carbonic acid gas then existing in the atmosphere was larger than the quantity which we now find, and Professor Tyndall has shown that the effect of this would be to prevent radiation of heat from the earth.  The resulting forms of vegetation would be such as would be comparable with those which are now reared in the green-house or conservatory in these latitudes.  The gas would, in fact, act as a glass roof, extending over the whole world.

CHAPTER II.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE COAL-BEARING STRATA.

In considering the source whence coal is derived, we must be careful to remember that coal itself is but a minor portion of the whole formation in which it occurs.  The presence of coal has indeed given the name to the formation, the word “carboniferous” meaning “coal-bearing,” but in taking a comprehensive view of the position which it occupies in the bowels of the earth, it will be necessary to take into consideration the strata in which it is found, and the conditions, so far as are known, under which these were deposited.