The World Before the Deluge

by Louis Figuier

Among the most abundant of the shells belonging to the upper Trias, in all the countries where it has been examined, are the Avicula, Cardium, and Pecten, one of which is given in [Fig. 85]. Foraminifera are numerous in the Keuper marls. The remains of land-plants, and the peculiarities of some of the reptiles of the Keuper period, tend to confirm the opinion of Professor Ramsay, that the strata were deposited in inland salt-lakes.

In the Keuper period the islands and continents presented few mountains; they were intersected here and there by large lakes, with flat and uniform banks. The vegetation on their shores was very abundant, and we possess its remains in great numbers. The Keuper Flora was very analogous to those of the Lias and Oolite, and consisted of Ferns, Equisetaceæ, Cycads, Conifers, and a few plants, which M. Ad. Brongniart classes among the dubious monocotyledons. Among the Ferns may be quoted many species of Sphenopteris or Pecopteris. Among them, Pecopteris Stuttgartiensis, a tree with channelled trunk, which rises to a considerable height without throwing out branches, and terminates in a crown of leaves finely cut and with long petioles; the Equisetites columnaris, a great Equisetum analogous to the horse-tails of our age, but of infinitely larger dimensions, its long fluted trunk, surmounted by an elongated fructification, towering over all the other trees of the marshy soil.

The Pterophyllum Jägeri and P. Münsteri represented the Cycads, the Taxodites Münsterianus represented the Conifers, and, finally, the trunk of the Calamites was covered with a creeping plant, having elliptical leaves, with a re-curving nervature borne upon its long petioles, and the fruit disposed in bunches; this is the Preissleria antiqua, a doubtful monocotyledon, according to Brongniart, but M. Unger places it in the family of Smilax, of which it will thus be the earliest representative. The same botanist classes with the canes a marsh-plant very common in this period, the Palæoxyris Münsteri, which Brongniart classes with the Preissleria among his doubtful Monocotyledons.

The vegetation of the latter part of the Triassic period is thus characterised by Lecoq, in his “Botanical Geography”: “The cellular Cryptogameæ predominate in this as they do in the Carboniferous epoch, but the species have changed, and many of the genera also are different; the Cladephlebis, the Sphenopteris, the Coniopteris, and Pecopteris predominate over the others in the number of species. The Equisetaceæ are more developed than in any other formation. One of the finest species, the Calamites arenaceus of Brongniart, must have formed great forests. The fluted trunks resemble immense columns, terminating at the summit in leafy branches, disposed in graceful verticillated tufts, foreshadowing the elegant forms of Equisetum sylvaticum. Growing alongside of these were a curious Equisetum and singular Equisetites, a species of which last, E. columnaris, raised its herbaceous stem, with its sterile articulations, to a great height.

“What a singular aspect these ancient rocks would present, if we add to them the forest-trees Pterophyllum and the Zamites of the fine family of Cycadeaceæ, and the Conifers, which seem to have made their appearance in the humid soil at the same time!

“It is during this epoch, while yet under the reign of the dicotyledonous angiosperms, that we discover the first true monocotyledons. The Preissleria antiqua, with its long petals, drooping and creeping round the old trunks, its bunches of bright-coloured berries like the Smilax of our own age, to which family it appears to have belonged. Besides, the Triassic marshes gave birth to tufts of Palæoxyris Münsteri, a cane-like species of the Gramineæ, which, in all probability, cheered the otherwise gloomy shore.

“During this long period the earth preserved its primitive vegetation; new forms are slowly introduced, and they multiply slowly. But if our present types of vegetation are deficient in these distant epochs, we ought to recognise also that the plants which in our days represent the vegetation of the primitive world are often shorn of their grandeur. Our Equisetaceæ and Lycopodiaceæ are but poor representatives of the Lepidodendrons; the Calamites and Asterophyllites had already run their race before the epoch of which we write.”

The principal features of Triassic vegetation are represented in [Plate XIV.], page 198. On the cliff, on the left of the ideal landscape, the graceful stems and lofty trees are groups of Calamites arenaceus; below are the great “horse-tails” of the epoch, Equisetum columnare, a slender tapering species, of soft and pulpy consistence, which, rising erect, would give a peculiar physiognomy to the solitary shore.

The Keuper formation presents itself in Europe at many points, and it is not difficult to trace its course. In France it appears in the department of the Indre, of the Cher, of the Allier, of the Nièvre, of the Saône-et-Loire; upon the western slopes of the Jura its outliers crop out near Poligny and Salins, upon the western slopes of the Vosges; in the Doubs it shows itself; then it skirts the Muschelkalk area in the Haute-Marne; in the Vosges it assumes large proportions in the Meurthe at Luneville and Dieuze; in the Moselle it extends northward to Bouzonville; and on the Rhine to the east of Luxembourg as far as Dockendorf. Some traces of it show themselves upon the eastern slopes of the Vosges, on the lower Rhine.

It appears again in Switzerland and in Germany, in the canton of Basle, in Argovia, in the Grand Duchy of Würtemberg, in the Tyrol, and in Austria, where it gives its name to the city of Salzburg.