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Explanations: a sequel to Vestiges of the natural history of creation / By the author of that work.

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
MDCCCXLV
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Explanations: a sequel to Vestiges of the natural history of creation / By the author of that work. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/222 page 60
    than quote the laborious young Professor of King’s College—“ The plants which have hitherto been described [in the carboniferous formation], belong either to the acotyledonous class, as the ferns, or to the monocotyledons, and, on the whole, they constitute the simplest forms of vegetation; but there have also been met with among coal plants, unquestionable evidences of dicotyledonous struc- ture, and a genus has been formed under the name of Pinites, to include a number of speci- mens of fossil wood, &c.”* To the undoubted evidence of Mr. Ansted, may be added that of his more eminent contemporary, Mr. Lyell, whose sense of the botanical character of this age is such that he emphatically calls it the Age of Ferns.t It is evident, then, taking the land- plants of this era as the first, that it is of a nature to harmonize with the development theory, for its chief forms are humble, and only a few are of higher grade, most of these, too, being of an in- termediate character between the low and the high. I am reminded, however, in other quarters, of certain experiments of Dr. Lindley, show- ing that the plants chiefly found in the coal are * Ansted’s Geology. 1844. } Travels in North America, ii. 52.
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