Nothing can be more remarkable than the apparently sudden and simultaneous incoming of the batrachian reptiles in the Coal-formation. As if at a given signal, they came up like the frogs of Egypt everywhere and in all varieties of form. If, as evolutionists suppose, they were developed from fishes, this must have been by some sudden change, occurring at once all over the world, unless indeed some great and unknown gap separates the Devonian from the Carboniferous—a supposition which seems quite contrary to fact—or unless in some region yet unexplored this change was proceeding, and at a particular time its products spread themselves over the world—a supposition equally improbable. In short, the hypothesis of evolution, as applied to these animals, is surrounded with geological improbabilities.
A remarkable picture of the conditions of Palæozoic land life is presented by the occurrence of remains of reptiles, millepedes and land-snails in such erect trees as that represented in [Fig. 140]. In the now celebrated section of the South Joggins in Nova Scotia, trees of this kind occur at more than sixty different levels; but only in one of these have they as yet been found to be rich in animal remains. Fortunately this bed is so well exposed and so abundant in trees, that I have myself, within a few years, removed from it about twenty of them, the greater number affording remains of land animals.
Fig. 140.—Section showing the position of an erect Sigillaria, containing remains of land animals.
1. Underclay, with rootlets of Stigmaria, resting on gray shale, with two thin coaly seams.
2. Gray sandstone, with erect trees, Calamites, and other stems: 9 feet.
3. Coal, with erect tree on its surface: 6 inches.
4. Underclay with Stigmaria rootlets.
| a, Calamites. b, Stem of plant undetermined. | c, Stigmaria roots. d, Erect trunk, 9 feet high. |