. The testimony of the rocks; . they could not possess. One of perhaps the most deeply interesting departmentsof your great British Museum—the wonder of the world— is that noble gallery, consisting of a suite of rooms,opening in line, the one beyond the other, which formsits rich storehouse of organic remains. You must ofcourse remember the order in which the organisms ofthat gallery are ranged. The visitor is first ushered into aspacious room devoted to fossil plants, chiefly of the CoalMeasures. And if these organisms are in any degree lessimposing in their aspect than those of the apartment
. The testimony of the rocks; . they could not possess. One of perhaps the most deeply interesting departmentsof your great British Museum—the wonder of the world— is that noble gallery, consisting of a suite of rooms,opening in line, the one beyond the other, which formsits rich storehouse of organic remains. You must ofcourse remember the order in which the organisms ofthat gallery are ranged. The visitor is first ushered into aspacious room devoted to fossil plants, chiefly of the CoalMeasures. And if these organisms are in any degree lessimposing in their aspect than those of the apartmentswhich follow in the series, it is only because that, fromthe exceeding greatness of the Coal Measure plants, theycan be exhibited in but bits and fragments. Within lessthan an hours walk of the Scottish capital there are singletrees of this ancient period deeply embedded in the sand- 164 THE TWO RECORDS, stone strata, which, though existing- as mere mutilatedportions of theii* former selves, would yet fail to find Fig, LEPIDODENDRON STERNBERGII. accommodation in that great apartment. One of tliosefossil trees, — a noble araucarian, — which occurs in what MOSAIC AND GEOLOGICAL. 165 is knowTi as the Granton quarry, is a mere fragment, for itwants both root and top, and yet what remains is sixty-one Fig. 9L
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