[footnote] *Beyrich, in Karsteu's 'Archiv fur Mineralogie', 1844, bd. xviii., s. 218.
Nothing appears to corroborate p 279 the theoretical views that have been started regarding the simplicity of primitive forms of organic life, ow that vegetable preceded animal life, and that the former was necessarily dependent upon the latter. The existence of races of men inhabiting the icy regions of the North Polar lands, and whose nutriment is solely derived from fish and cetaceans, shows the possibility of maintaining life independently of vegetable substances. After the devonian system and the mountain limestone, we come to a formation, the botanical analysis of which has made such brilliant advances in modern times.*
[footnote] *By the important labors of Count Sternberg, Adolphe Brongniart, Goppert, and Lindley.
The coal measures contain not only fern-like cryptogamic plants and phanerogamic monocotyledons (grasses, yucc-like Liliaceae and palms), but also gymnospermic dicotyledons (Coniferae and Cycadeae), amounting in all to nearly 400 species, as characteristic of the coal formations. Of these we will only enumerate arborescent Calamites and Lycopodiaceae, scaly Lepidodendra, Sigillariae, which attain a height of sixty feet, and are sometimes found standing upright, being distinguished by a double system of vascular bundles, cactus-like Stigmariae, a great number of ferns, in some cases the stems, and in others the fronds alone being found, indicating by their abundance the insular form of the dry land,* Cycadeae** especially palms, although fewer in number.***
[footnote] *See Robert Brown's 'Botany of Congo', p. 42, and the Memoir of the unfortunate E'Urville, 'De la Distribution des Fougeres sur la Surface du Globe Terrestre'.
[footnote] **Such are the Cycadeae discovered by Count Sternberg in the old carboniferous formation at Radnitz, in Bohemia, and described by Corda (two species of Cycatides and Zamites Cordai. See Goppert, 'Fossile Cycadeen in den Arbeiten der Schles. Gesellschaft, fur waterl. Cultur im Jahr' 1843, s. 33, 37, 40 and 50). A Cycadea (Pterophyllum gonorchachis, Gopp.) has also been found in the carboniferous formations in Upper Silesia, at Konigshutte.
[footnote] ***Lindley, 'Fossil Flora', No. xv., p. 163.
Asterophyllites, having whorl-like leaves, and allied to the Naiades, with araucaria-like Coniferae',* which exhibit faint traces of annual rings.
[footnote] *'Fossil Coniferae', in Buckland's 'Geology', p. 483-490. Witham has the great merit of having first recognized the existence of Coniferae in the early vegetation of the old carboniferous formation. Almost all the trunks of trees found in this formation were previously regarded as palms. The species of the genus 'Araucaria' are, however, not peculiar to the coal formations of the British Islands; they likewise occur in Upper Silesia.
This difference of character from our present vegtation, minifested in the vegetative forms which were so luxuriously developed on the drier p 280 and more elevated portions of the old red sandstone, was maintained through all the subsequent epochs to the most recent chalk formations; amid the peculiar characteristics exhibited in the vegetable forms contained in the coal measures, there is, however, a strikingly-marked prevalence of the same families, if not of the same species,* in all parts of the earth as it then existed, as in New Holland, Canada, Greenland, and Melville Island.