bear no proportion whatever, either in extent of sur-
face or in thickness, to the coralline limestones of
the newer period we are about to describe. In the
British Islands it would appear that the most con-
siderable masses of limestone were formed immedi-
ately after the deposit of the old red sandstone and
devonian rocks had been completed; but we have
distinct evidence in the gradual diminution in the size
of the pebbles, and at length the alternation of lime-
stone with fine marine gravel, that there was neither
a sudden change nor a break in the continuity of
depositions. It is probable, therefore, that, at the
OF CREATION. 75
time thus indicated, there may have existed in our
latitudes a shallow sea bottom, well adapted in some
places for the foundation of coral reefs, and probably
resembling the shallows upon which similar circlets
of coral islands have been built in the Pacific Ocean.
Upon such banks, and on a sinking continent, the
coral animals of the ancient seas seem gradually but
steadily to have reared their eternal monuments of
labour, and thus there grew up in the course of ages
those numerous and often detached, but always simi-
lar limestones, which may be traced very readily both
in the British Islands and in other parts of the world.
In our own country they extend from South Wales
and the neighbourhood of Bristol northwards, bear-
ing a little to the east, and although often cover-
ed up by newer beds, they still form the predo-
minating rocks in the counties of Derbyshire, Lan-
cashire, Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland.
To the west the same rock recurs, possessing all its
most striking features ; and though only exposed in
certain limited districts, yet it exists over the greater
part of Ireland, although there, as in many parts of
England, it is frequently covered up or replaced by a
coarse sandy grit, unlike the old red sandstone, and
generally known amongst Geologists as the millstone
grit.
Whilst the coral limestones were thus being built
up in the seas which then covered our island, there
seems to have been a tract of land extending to the
west, ranging both north and south from England,
and also from the western coast of what is now
Ireland. In evidence of this, we find that the lowest
beds of the carboniferous period in the north-west of
E 2
76 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
Yorkshire, in Devonshire, and also in some parts of
Ireland, abound with the remains of land vegetables ;
and, although there is no doubt that many of these
may have been drifted by marine currents, there is, at
all events, great probability of the distance from land
not having been great.
It is worth noticing also, with regard to this point,
that the carboniferous limestones, or corresponding
beds of the same age, skirt the old rocks of Cumber-
land, and are deposited in hollows in the devonian
rocks of Devonshire and Cornwall; and it is likely
that these very rocks themselves, as we know them
to have been hardened and prepared for such expo-
sure, formed the actual dry land of the period, and
that upon them grew the trees and shrubs whose
remains are met with in the limestones near them.
However this may be, the existence of adjacent land
at this time is sufficiently proved; and we may pro-
ceed to consider the circumstances of the deposit of
the coarse grit and finer sandstones, the upper mem-
bers of which were the receptacles of the great masses
of vegetable remains now changed into the mineral
we call coal.
It is not improbable, or contrary to what we have
reason to think the usual order of nature at present
in those parts of the world where coral formations
are in progress, that the building up of extensive
reefs, of great thickness and extent, should be suc-
ceeded by a change in the level of the neighbouring
sea bottom. In the case of the carboniferous rocks,
this change probably involved the depression of a
large tract of land, of whose general form and even
direction we are quite ignorant; nor can we even
OF CREATION.
77
assert positively, with regard to this land, whether it
consisted of numerous small detached islands, or of
an archipelago with a few large islands, such as we
now have off the eastern coast of Asia. But this
depression was most likely succeeded by elevation;
and in whatever direction the new land appeared,
there are distinct indications of the deposit of very
thick and extensive beds of sandstone and grit hav-
ing preceded those muddy and fine sandy beds in
which the vegetable remains were chiefly preserved,
and which handed them down in vast abundance to
the later days of our earth's history.
These unfossiliferous sandstones are chiefly exhi-
bited in the northern, though they are not absent in
the southern part of the great expanse of the carbo-
niferous rocks in England ; and they also cover almost
the whole of the mountain limestone of Ireland.
Some parts of the middle of England exhibit no traces
of them ; and the condition of the south Staffordshire
coal-fields, where the limestone is also absent, and the
coal-measures rest immediately on the old rock, offers
ample proof of the partial character of the deposit,
even if the very nature of coral reefs and islands did
not render probable the occasional absence of one
member of the series. It is, however, worthy of no-
tice, that in this middle district, where sometimes the
mountain limestone and sometimes the coarser grits
are absent, we find a thin but very well-marked band
of pale blue limestone, not coralline, but of distinctly
fresh-water origin, belonging to the upper and newer
beds of the coal-measures, and appearing at intervals
over an area whose extreme points are nearly a hun-
dred miles apart.
78 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
Those parts of the great carboniferous series which
generally include the beds of coal consist of muddy
and sandy beds, alternating with one another and with
the coal itself. Some of them would appear to be of
fresh-water and some of marine origin ; and they
abound, for the most part, with remains of the leaves
of ferns and fern-like trees, together with the crushed
trunks of these and other trees, whose substance may
have contributed to form the great accumulations of
bituminised and other vegetable carbon obtained from
these strata, and well known under the name of coal.
It is not easy to communicate such an idea of beds
of coal as shall enable the reader to understand clearly
the nature of the circumstances under which they may
have been deposited, and the time required for this
purpose. The actual total thickness of the different
beds in England varies considerably in different dis-
tricts, but appears to amount, in the Lancashire coal-
field, to as much as 150 feet. In North America there
is a coal-field of vast extent, in which there appears at
least as great a thickness of workable coal as in any
part of England ; while in Belgium and France the
thickness is often much less considerable, although the
beds thicken again still further to the east.
But this account of the thickness of the beds gives
a very imperfect notion of the quantity of vegetable
matter required to form them ; and, on the other hand,
the rate of increase of vegetables, and the quantity an-
nually brought down by some of the great rivers, both
of the eastern and western continents, is beyond all
measure greater than is the case in our drier and colder
climates. The trees which, in many cases, contributed
largely to the formation of the coal, seem to have
OF CREATION.
79
been almost entirely succulent, and capable of being
squeezed into a small compass during partial decom-
position. This squeezing process must have been con-
ducted on a grand scale, both during and after the
formation of separate beds, and each bed in succession
was probably soon covered up by muddy and sandy
accumulations, now alternating with the coal in the
form of shale and grit-stone. Sometimes trunks of
trees caught in the mud would be retained in a slant-
ing or nearly vertical position, while the sands were
accumulating round them ; sometimes the whole would
be quietly buried, and soon cease to exhibit any exter-
nal marks of vegetable origin.*
To relate at full length the different processes,
and the gradual superposition of one bed upon an-
other, by which at length, and by slow degrees, the
whole group of the coal-measures was completed,
would involve far too much complication of detail to be
described in a few pages ; and when it is remembered
that the woody fibre, when deposited, had to be after-
wards completely changed, and the whole character of
the vegetable modified, before it could be reduced to
the bituminous, brittle, almost crystalline mineral now
dug out of the earth for fuel, it will rather seem ques-
tionable whether the origin of coal was certainly and
necessarily vegetable, than reasonable to doubt the
importance of the change that has taken place, and
* There can be no reasonable doubt, judging from the analogy of exist-
ing vegetation, that some beds of coal may have been derived from the
mass of vegetable matter present at one time on the surface and submerged
suddenly. It is only necessary to refer to the accounts of vegetation in
some of the extremely moist warm islands in the southern hemisphere,
where the ground is occasionally covered with eight or ten feet of de-
caying vegetable matter at one time, to be satisfied that this is at least
possible.
80 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
the existence of extraordinary means to produce that
change. Nothing, however, is more certain than that
all coal was once vegetable ; for in most cases woody
structure may be detected under the microscope, and
this, if not in the coal in its ordinary state, at least in
the burnt ashes which remain after it has been ex-
posed to the action of heat, and has lost its bitumi-
nous and semi-crystalline character. This has been
too well and too frequently proved by actual experi-
ment, to require more than the mere statement of the
fact.
The principal vegetable remains, the study of which
conducts the botanical fossilist to a knowledge of the
trees and 'shrubs that clothed the land during this
period, are not met with in the substance of the coal
itself, but in the shales and sandstones so abundantly
mixed with the coal. These beds have received, and
occasionally retained, the fragments that have been
deposited in them ; and from such fragments, consist-
ing of leaves and small branches, portions of the larger
branches, or even the entire trunk, and occasionally,
also, internal casts or markings of the surface of the
fruits of various trees, conclusions have been arrived
at and analogies drawn expressing the relation they
bear to existing plants. Now if, in all cases, the solid
substance of the trunks and the perfect outline of the
leaves and fruits had been preserved, the botanist
might fairly have been expected to explain the general
character of the vegetation thus exemplified ; but un-
fortunately this is not the case. In most instances,
even those which seem most favourable, it is only the
cast of the tree in sandstone, the impression made by
the outside or inside of the bark, and a little of the
OF CREATION. 81
substance of the bark turned into coal, that re-
mains; and the shape even of the trunk has been often
completely lost by crushing ; thus showing, indeed,
one peculiarity indicative of the great natural group
of trees to which the fossils belonged (the Monocoty-
ledons, or Endogens), but at the same time almost
precluding the possibility of comparison with the few
recent plants of the same tribe which appear to resem-
ble them in general form or structure.
Still, in spite of the difficulties with which the
subject is surrounded, and in spite of the perplexing
confusion which might well alarm the botanist only
acquainted with the ordinary marks of distinction ex-
hibited by plants, a great deal has been done towards
determining the general nature of the flora of the
islands of the carboniferous period. It is remarkable,
that, in the first place, this flora is found to be, to a
great extent, uniform in all parts of the globe from
which carboniferous fossils have been obtained ; *
and, in the next place, that, if we wish to compare this
ancient flora with those which bear resemblance to it
at present, either in the general preponderance of par-
ticular plants, or in the total absence of others, we must
leave entirely the northern latitudes and the north-
ern hemisphere, and transport ourselves to the islands
in the neighbourhood of our antipodes, where New
Zealand and the southern part of Australia, together
with an innumerable multitude of small islands, form
almost the only land that now exists in the vast area
between the tropic of Capricorn and the South pole.
* Namely, the whole of western, northern, and eastern Europe, North
America from Alabama to Melville Island, various districts in Asia, eastern
Australia, and Van Diemen's Land, and (probably) the Asiatic islands.
82
PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
But although in such distant parts of the world
we really have a somewhat similar group of plants
to that of the coal-measures, and the dark-tinted
ferns do now, as they once did in the northern hemi-
sphere, take the place of our cheerful grasses, and even
grow in rank luxuriance into forest trees, being as-
sociated with palms and some peculiar pines, there
is probably after all but little true resemblance; nor
can the Geologist feel satisfied that the condition of
things was the same formerly in England as it is now
in the islands of the southern sea. One of the most
remarkable peculiarities of the coal fossils certainly is,
however, the singular preponderance of the tribe of
ferns already alluded to, and the great variety of form
in which plants of this kind are developed. Of these
forms, the annexed figures (26, 27) represent two that
Fig. 26
Fig. 27
PECOPTERIS.
ODONTOPTERIS.
are common and highly characteristic. They are found
sometimes in isolated fragments, in sand or shale, but
are sometimes so very abundant, that the whole mass
OF CREATION.
83
seems to have been formed rapidly in association with
such vegetable remains.
Besides these two forms, there are, however,
many others ; as, for instance, the SpJienopteris (fig.
28), and the Neuropteris* (29) ; both of them com-
mon, and, in all probability, belonging to the group
of arborescent ferns, and growing in wild luxuriance
on stems of greater or less altitude. Some notion
Fig. 28 Fig. 29
SPHENOPTERIS. NEUROPTERIS.
may be formed of the peculiar character of such
vegetation by referring to the frontispiece at the be-
ginning of this volume, where it has been endea-
voured, by combining existing and analogous forms
with some restored forms of extinct plants, to com-
municate a notion, however vague, of the flora of
the coal period.
Besides the arborescent ferns, then growing to a
great size, I might also notice the gigantic propor-
tions of other plants, whose modern representatives
* These names are all derived from the peculiar form of the leaf and
its venation, in combination with the Greek word TrrtpiQ (pteris), a fern.
The derivatives are respectively TTEKW (peco), to comb; odovg gen. odov-
TOQ (odontos), a tooth; GI\V gen. crtyqvoQ (spAeos),awedge; and vtvpov
(neuron), a nerve.
84 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
are uniformly small ; but, as the resemblance in this
case is simply one of general form, and the great ma-
jority of other trees seem to possess no living type
to which they can be referred, it is by no means
impossible that these also may be completely lost.
One example of them is seen in a plant, fragments
of which are extremely common in the coal-measures,
and which has been called Calamite* (fig. 30).
The remains of calamites consist of jointed frag-
ments, which were originally cylindrical, but are now
Fig. 30 almost always crushed arid flattened.
They resemble very closely, in gene-
ral appearance, the common jointed
reed growing in marshes, and called
Equisetum, or mare^s tail ; but, in-
stead of being confined to a small
size, they would seem to have formed
trees having a stem sometimes more
CALAMITE. than a foot in diameter, and jointed
branches and leaves of similar gigantic proportions.
They were evidently soft and succulent, and very
easily crushed. They seem to have grown in great
multitudes near the place where the coal is now
accumulated ; and, though often broken, they seldom
bear marks of having been transported from a dis-
tance.
The calamites, although common fossils in the coal-
measures in all places where those rocks appear, are
by no means so abundantly present as the fronds or
leaves of ferns ; and these latter seem, as has been al-
ready observed, to have belonged to that tribe of ferns,
species of which grow to a great height and on a lofty
* KaXttjuo (calamof), a reed.
OF CREATION. 85
trunk, forming what are called tree ferns, well known
in the Australian islands and colonies, and met with
also in other countries where the conditions of vege-
tation are equally favourable for these plants.
There is nothing in the appearance of such leaves
or their structure which distinguishes them very espe-
cially from the ferns of a later period or of the pre-
sent day. Their great preponderance over all other
fossils in the shales, proves how large a proportion they
occupied of the whole flora, or at least of that portion
capable of preservation ; and the presence, also, of
stems and trunks, marked with scars like those ob-
served on modern tree ferns, shows that, like these,
they attained a very large size, and grew in a very
similar manner.
Two well-marked genera of lofty forest trees are
almost the only other plants which appear, from their
great abundance, to have contributed in large propor-
tion to the solid matter of the coal. Of these, one,
called by Geologists Lepidodendron* (see frontispiece,)
seems to have risen to a great height from the ground,
and to have given off branches at a very acute angle.
The whole stem was covered with scars, or marks of
the places from which leaves had fallen, and the leaves
or fronds themselves seem to have been borne in long
rows, arranged in a different manner from that ob-
served in existing trees. The most probable account
of this tree is, that it bore a considerable resemblance
in some respects to a particular group of pines, but
that it exhibited in other matters, and those too of
great importance in classification, analogies with the
, gen. Xe7rio (lepidos)^ a scale; dtvdpov (dendron\ a tree : the
trunk of this tree being marked along its whole length with scales or scars.
86
PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
singular club-mosses (ycopodiace<e), so close as al-
most to justify the opinion of its having formed a
connecting link between these two very different natu-
ral tribes of plants.
Another genus, the iSigillaria* (fig. 31), must, if
recent observations are correct, be considered as the
stem of the tree of which the so-called Stigmaria-^
was only the root. It was even more abundant, and
a still more important element in the formation of
coal, than the Lepidodendron. The stems of Sigilla-
rise exhibit no internal woody structure, having been
SIGILLARIA. Trunk and Roots.
for the most part either hollow or succulent, and easily
crushed, but they were evidently provided with a cen-
tral woody axis, and also with an outer coating of bark,
the latter often turned into coal, and sometimes be-
ing nearly an inch in thickness. The whole of the
trunk is elegantly fluted, and there is a single row of
small scars, the remains of leaves, at regular distances
* From the Latin sigillum, a seal, or the impression made by it ; the
trunk of the tree appearing to have been stamped with a pattern in regu-
lar rows along the direction of its length.
t Srty/ia (stigma), a mark. The fossil was called Stigmaria, from the
regular and deep marks or brands impressed on the supposed stem or root.
OF CREATION. 87
on each fluting. It is pretty clear that the leaves at-
tached at these scars were connected through the bark
with the central woody axis.
The fossils that have received the name Stigmaria,
and which have heen supposed to be roots belonging to
Sigillaria, are in some places so extremely abundant in
the shales lying under coal seams, that in South Wales
they seem almost invariably to form a kind of floor on
which the coal rests. In this case the slender fibres
proceeding from the large roots are completely matted
together, and form an entangled mass, traversing the
bed in every direction. Like the Sigillaria trunk, these
roots appear to have consisted of a tough bark inclosing
a woody centre, the interval being filled with succulent
matter. The plants thus described probably belonged
to an extinct family, intermediate in character between
the cone-bearing plants or pines and the Cycadsese,
and they probably resembled the Zamia, although ex-
panded into a lofty forest tree, and giving off branches
as well as leaves.
But while such is the nearest approach that we can
make to a description of their appearance, it must not
be imagined that we have arrived at any very certain
conclusions with regard to these vegetables. They
appear to depart so widely from those which are now
common in any part of the world, that we can only
suggest what may perhaps have been similar, and dare
not assert positively the existence of analogies, except
that there is little doubt that in endeavouring to
picture to ourselves the condition of the land during
the deposit of the coal, we must rather look to the
southern antipodal islands, and especially to New Zea-
land, for these analogies, than to other parts of the
88 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES
world where vegetation, although even more luxu-
riant, belongs to a different type.
And there is, after all, nothing improbable in the
notion, that, at the period of the deposit of the coal-
measures, the northern hemisphere in our latitudes
was for the most part occupied by a great ocean, stud-
ded over with numerous islands, some of larger, some
of smaller size ; open water reaching from this archi-
pelago quite to the arctic circle. Innumerable islands
and reefs may have been there planted and destroyed,
while some few, undergoing depression at a slow rate,
became before their final disappearance the receptacle
of those sandy and muddy banks among which the
vegetable matter was embedded. Numerous inlets
may have indented the coast line of the larger islands,
and have received into them rivers or mountain
streams, loaded with the fragments of trees and other
vegetables brought down during the rainy season.
The whole of the interior of the islands may have
been clothed with thick forest, the dark verdure of
which would only be interrupted by the bright green
of the swamps in the hollows, or the brown tint of
the fern covering some districts near the coasts. The
forest would have been formed by a mixture of seve-
ral different trees. We should see there, for instance,
the lofty and widely-spreading Lepidodendron, its deli-
cate, feathery, arid moss-like fronds clothing in rich
luxuriance branches and stems, which are built up,
like the trunk of the tree-fern, by successive leaf-
stalks that have one after another dropped away,
giving by their decay additional height to the stem,
which might at length be mistaken for that of a
gigantic pine.
OF CREATION. 89
There also should we find the Sigillaria, its tapering
and elegant form sustained on a large and firm basis,
enormous matted roots almost as large as the trunk
itself being given off in every direction, and shooting
out their fibres far into the sand and clay in search of
moisture. The stem of this tree would appear like a
fluted column, rising simply and gracefully without
branches to a great height, and then spreading out a
magnificent head of leaves like a noble palm tree.
Other trees more or less resembling palms, and others
like existing firs, also abounded, giving a richness and
variety to the scene ; while one gigantic species, strik-
ingly resembling the Altingia, or Norfolk Island pine,
might be seen towering a hundred feet or more above
the rest of the forest, and exhibiting tier after tier of
branches richly clothed with its peculiar pointed and
pear-like leaves, the branches gradually diminishing in
size as they approach the apex of a lofty pyramid of
vegetation.
Tree ferns also in abundance might there be recog-