Plant-life, with 74 full-page illus., 24 being from photos, by the author and 50 in colour from drawings . servation in fossilform. We hardly expect to find fossil AmoebcB, but welook for fossil records of molluscs, whose calcareous shellsare more or less durable, and we are not disappointedin our search if we happen to work strata wherethey occur. The fossil record is not complete, yet it isremarkably rich. Indeed, when we think of the pas-sage of time, the stress of the ages, and the nature ofthe foTms of which fossils have been found, we cannotfail to marvel at its richness. In respect to t
Plant-life, with 74 full-page illus., 24 being from photos, by the author and 50 in colour from drawings . servation in fossilform. We hardly expect to find fossil AmoebcB, but welook for fossil records of molluscs, whose calcareous shellsare more or less durable, and we are not disappointedin our search if we happen to work strata wherethey occur. The fossil record is not complete, yet it isremarkably rich. Indeed, when we think of the pas-sage of time, the stress of the ages, and the nature ofthe foTms of which fossils have been found, we cannotfail to marvel at its richness. In respect to the gamut of animal life, the witness ofthe rocks and their contained fossils has at least enabledus to make some broad generalizations. We can speakwith certainty of Ages when certain types of animalswere dominant—of the Age of Amphibians, the Ageof Reptiles, the Age of Mammals —and we can seehow reptiles gained the supremacy over amphibians,and the later mammals in their turn came into theascendant, and drove the reptiles into hiding, manyof them into oblivion. And in many ways fossUs Plate EVERGREEN ALKANET (Anchusa semper-virens). Order BORAGINACE^. FOSSIL PLANTS 221 have enabled investigators to do much more thangeneralize. What is true in regard to the scale of animal life isalso apparent concerning plant-life. The fossil recordfurnishes ample proof of development, in spite of thefact that there must have existed in the past a wealthof plant forms of which we have no fossil evidence. Weknow that in certain geological periods there weregroups of plants which were conspicuous and important,but are now extinct. We are sure that certain groups,such as the Club-Mosses (Lycopods) and Horsetails(Equisetums), were once dignified and dominant, andthat now their glory hath departed, for such as existto-day are small and inconspicuous in comparison withtheir giant ancestors. We know, also, that now is the Age of Angiosperms, with the odds in favour of theDicotyledons; that
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1915
