. The Open court. en withcarbon dioxide. Never again was rainfall to be so universally tor-rential ; never again was plant life to be so luxuriant and dense, tropical flora of to-day is only a faint reminder of the 650 Till. (i1i:n (I UK I verdure of that distant period, doomed to fall in tangled masses, andsink beneath the erosive deposits of the relentless sea. and becomethe vast storehouses of heat and locomotion for the inhabitants ofa chilled and far more rigorous world. Differentiation in climate is shown near tlu close of the Car-boniferous period by the fact that conifers—


. The Open court. en withcarbon dioxide. Never again was rainfall to be so universally tor-rential ; never again was plant life to be so luxuriant and dense, tropical flora of to-day is only a faint reminder of the 650 Till. (i1i:n (I UK I verdure of that distant period, doomed to fall in tangled masses, andsink beneath the erosive deposits of the relentless sea. and becomethe vast storehouses of heat and locomotion for the inhabitants ofa chilled and far more rigorous world. Differentiation in climate is shown near tlu close of the Car-boniferous period by the fact that conifers—cone-bearing trees—.the greatest of the four living groups of the gymnospenns. appearedin the far frigid zones. The conifers are adapted to a colder climate,and are far hardier trees than was the Carboniferous verdure repre-sented by the lycopods and kindred plant life. The slow encroach-ment upon the tropics of the conebearers plainly indicates the grad-ual but almost imperceptible refrigeration of om^ I ig. \\ . Till:, IALLOZOIC CO-N 1 i.\EJN 1 Ui- -NUKiii Those parts of tlie North American continent which wereabove the Permian or Triassic Sea at the close of tlic Paleozoicor dawn of the Mcsozoic era. (After a drawinu hv AlexanderWinchell.) The clarifying of the air 1)\- the Carlxmiferous flora, and theseparation of the earth into better (U-fnicd climatic zones, the gradualgrowth of land area around lltidsons ]>ay and the St. Lawrencevalley and the Appalachian and Cordilleran mountain systems. () marked the close of tlu coal-making ])(.riod and the advent ofthe Permian. The consumption of a vast amotmt of carbon dioxide(CO.,) by the luxuriant plant life of the Carboniferotis period, andthe loss of much moisture from the air, fa\ored an accelerated I 111-: i-A 11(>.\ oi- (:. 651 radiation of terrestrial heat into interplanetary space. Consequentlytraces of glacial action are found which were made during thePermian period, in remote


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887