A similar abundance of distinctly preserved
vegetable remains, occurs throughout the other
Coal fields of Great Britain. But the finest
example I have ever witnessed, is that of the
coal mines of Bohemia just mentioned. The most
elaborate imitations of living foliage upon the
painted ceilings of Italian palaces, bear no comparison
with the beauteous profusion of extinct
vegetable forms, with which the galleries of these
instructive coal mines are overhung. The roof
is covered as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry,
enriched with festoons of most graceful foliage,
flung in wild, irregular profusion over every portion
of its surface. The effect is heightened by
the contrast of the coal-black colour of these
vegetables, with the light ground work of the
rock to which they are attached. The spectator
feels himself transported, as if by enchantment,
into the forests of another world; he beholds
Trees, of forms and characters now unknown
upon the surface of the earth, presented to his
senses almost in the beauty and vigour of their
primeval life; their scaly stems, and bending
branches, with their delicate apparatus of foliage,
are all spread forth before him ; little impaired
by the lapse of countless Ages, and bearing
faithful records of extinct systems of vegetation,
which began and terminated in times of which
these relics are the infallible Historians.
Such are the grand natural Herbaria wherein
these most ancient remains of the vegetable kingdom
are preserved, in a state of integrity, little
short of their living perfection, under conditions
of our Planet which exist no more.
SECTION II.
VEGETABLES IN STRATA OF THE TRANSITION SERIES.*
T he remains of plants of the Transition period
are most abundant in that newest portion of the
deposits of this era, which constitutes the Coal
Formation, and afford decisive evidence as to
the condition of the vegetable kingdom at this
early epoch in the history of Organic Life.
The Nature of our Evidence will be best illustrated,
by selecting a few examples of the many
genera of fossil plants that are preserved in the
Strata of the Carboniferous Order, beginning
with those which are common both to the ancient
and existing states of Vegetable Life.
EquisetacecE
Among existing vegetables, the Equisetaceae
are well known in this climate in the common
Horse-tail of our swamps and ditches. The extent
of this family reaches from Lapland to the
* See PI. It Figs. 1, to 13'.
t See PI. 1. Fig. 2.