'
C hapter XVIII.
Proofs o f Design in the Structure o f Fossil
Vegetables.
SECTION I.
general history of fossil vegetables.
T h e history of Fossil Vegetables has a twofold
claim upon our consideration, in relation to the
object of our present enquiry. The first regards
the influence exerted on the actual condition of
Mankind, by the fossil carbonaceous remains of
Plants, which clothed the former surface of the
Earth, and has been briefly considered in a
former chapter; (Chap. VII. P. 63.) the second
directs our attention to the history and structure
of the ancient members of the vegetable kingdom.
It appears that nearly at the same points in
the progress of stratification, where the most
striking changes take place in the remains of
Animal life, there are found also concurrent
changes in the character of fossil Vegetables.
A large and new field of investigation is thus
laid open to our enquiry, wherein we may compare
the laws which regulated the varying systerns
of vegetation, on the earlier surfaces of our
earth, with those which actually prevail. Should
it result from this enquiry, that the families which
make up our fossil Flora were formed on principles,
either identical with those that regulate the
development of existing plants, or so closely
allied to them, as to form connected parts of
one and the same great system of laws, for the
universal regulation of organic life, we shall
add another link to the chain of arguments
which we extract from the interior of the Earth,
in proof of the Unity of the Intelligence and of
the Power, which have presided over the entire
construction of the material world.
We have seen that the first remains of Animal
life yet noticed are marine, and as the existence
of any kind of animals implies the prior, or at least
the contemporaneous existence of Vegetables, to
afford them sustenance, the presence of sea weeds
in strata coeval with these most ancient animals,
and their continuance onwards throughout all
formations of marine origin, is a matter of a priori
probability, which has been confirmed by the
results of actual observation. M. Adolphe Brong-
niart, in his admirable History of Fossil Vegetables,*
has shewn, that the existing submarine
vegetation seems to admit of three great divisions
which characterize, to a certain degree, the Plants
of the frigid, temperate, and torrid zones ; and
* Histoire dés Végétaux Fossiles, 4to. Paris, 1828,