Scenery of the carboniferous forests—Contrast in the appearance of coal districts at the present day—Abundance of animal life in the Carboniferous era—Advantages of palæontology over fossil-botany—Carboniferous fauna—Actiniæ—Cup-corals—Architecture of the present day might be improved by study of the architecture of the Carboniferous period—Mode of propagation of corals—A forenoon on the beach—Various stages in the decomposition of shells—Sea-mat—Bryozoa—Fenestella—Retepora—Stone-lilies—Popular superstitions—Structure of the stone-lilies—Aspect of the sea-bottom on which the stone-lilies flourished—Sea-urchins—Crustacea, their high antiquity—Cyprides—Architecture of the Crustacea and mollusca contrasted—King-crabs.
The forms of vegetation that flourished during the Carboniferous era seem to have been in large measure marshy plants, luxuriating on low muddy delta-lands, like the cypress-swamps of the Mississippi, or the Sunderbunds of the Ganges. We can picture but faintly the general scenery of these old forests from the broken and carbonized remains that have come down to us. But though perhaps somewhat monotonous on the whole, it must have been eminently beautiful in detail. The sigillariæ raised their sculptured stems and lofty waving wreaths of fronds high over the more swampy grounds, while a thick underwood of ferns and star-leaved asterophyllites clustered amid the shade below. The lepidodendra shot forth their spiky branches from the margin of green islets, and dropped their catkins into the sluggish water that stole on among the dimpled shadows underneath. Tree-ferns spread out their broad pendant fronds, and wrapt the ground below in an almost twilight gloom, darker and deeper far than that
"Hospitable roof
Of branching elms star-proof,"
which rose so often in the visions of Milton; or that "graceful arch" so exquisitely sung by Cowper, beneath which
"The chequered earth seems restless as a flood
Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light
Shot; through the boughs, it dances as they dance,
Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick,
And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves