As to the extent of time during which there was no life, we have no means of determining. That it was almost infinitely long is made apparent by the researches of eminent scholars on the cooling of lava. Toward the close of this extended period of time faint traces of life appear. Not life as we are apt to think of it. No nodding flowers were kissed by the sunshine of this early time. The earliest forms of flowerless plants, such as sea-weeds, and in dry places possibly lichens covering the rocks, were the highest forms of vegetable life. Animal life, if present, for the fact is denied by some, occurs in the very lowest form, merely structureless bodies, with no especial organs of sense, or nutrition: and their motion consisting simply in protruding and withdrawing hair-like processes.4 Such was the beginning of life. This vast period of time, which includes the beginning, is known among geologists as Archean time.
From the close of this age, the history of life properly commences. It might be well to explain the means which the geologist uses to interpret the history of the globe. It is now understood that the forces of nature have always produced the same results as they do now. From the very earliest time to the present, rocks have been forming. There, where conditions were favorable, great beds of limestone, formed from shells and corals, ground up by the action of the sea5—in other places, massive beds of sandstone or of sand, afterward consolidated into sandstone—were depositing. On the land surface, in places, great beds of vegetable débris were being converted into coal. Now we can easily see how the remains of organic bodies, growing at the time of the formation of these beds, should be preserved in a fossil form. Limestone rocks are thickly studded in places with all sorts of marine formations. Coal fields reveal wonders of early vegetative growth. From sandstone rocks, and shaly beds, we learn strange stories of animal life at the time they were forming. From a careful study of these remains together with the formation in which they occur, not only in one locality but all over the earth, geologists have gradually unfolded the history of life on the globe. It is admitted that, at best, our knowledge in that direction is fragmentary. This arises from errors in observation as well as that fossil formations are rare, or at least localities where they are known to exist are but few. So our knowledge of the past is as if we were examining some record from which pages, chapters, and even volumes, have been extracted.
In consequence of this imperfect record we can not, as yet, trace a gradual successive growth from the low forms of animal and plant life, that characterized the closing period of Archean time, to the highly organized types of the present. The record suddenly ceases and when we again pick up the thread we are surrounded by more advanced types, higher forms of life. Though we may hope that future discoveries will do much toward completing the records, we can not hope that they will ever really be perfected. So, from our present stand-point, the history of life on the globe falls naturally into three great divisions.6 This is no more than we might expect, when we reflect that nature’s laws are universal in their action, and that the world, as a whole, has been subjected to the same set of changes.
The period following on after Archean time is called, by geologists, Paleozoic time.
During the long course of time embraced in this age, the forms of life present wide differences from those of existing time.
This period produced the great beds of coal we use to-day. But the vegetation of the coal period would present strange features to our eyes. The vegetation commenced with the lowest orders of flowerless plants, such as sea-weeds; but, before it was brought to a close, there was a wonderful variety and richness of plants of the flowerless or Cryptogamic division. In some of the warmest portions of the globe, we have to-day tree-ferns growing four or five feet high. During the closing part of the Paleozoic time, there were growing all over the temperate zone great tree-ferns thirty feet or so in height. Some varieties of rushes in our marshes, a foot or two in height, had representatives in the marshes of the coal period standing thirty feet high, and having woody trunks.7 Near the close of the Paleozoic time, vegetation assumed a higher form of life. Flowering plants are represented. Pines were growing in the coal measures.
In animal life a similar advance is noted. The class of animals having no backbone, or invertebrate animals, were largely represented. But, toward the close of the Paleozoic time, we meet with representatives of the backbone family. The waters swarmed with fishes.8 Besides these, there were amphibians; 9 and reptiles in the closing portions.10