. The testimony of the rocks; . from the lower to the higher vege-table forms of the system, — from its ferns to its trees, —we find great conifers, — so great that they must haveraised their heads more than a hundred feet over the soil;and such was their abundance in this neighborhood, that * Fig. 14, Neuropteris Loshii. Fig. 15, Neuropteris gigantea. Fig. 16,JSTeuropteris acuminata. Fig. 17, Sphenopteris affinis. Fig. 18, Pecopterisheterophylla. Fig. 19, Sphenopteris dilitata. .d i HISTORY OF PLANTS. 59 one can scarce examine a fragment of coal beside oneshousehold fire that is not charged w
. The testimony of the rocks; . from the lower to the higher vege-table forms of the system, — from its ferns to its trees, —we find great conifers, — so great that they must haveraised their heads more than a hundred feet over the soil;and such was their abundance in this neighborhood, that * Fig. 14, Neuropteris Loshii. Fig. 15, Neuropteris gigantea. Fig. 16,JSTeuropteris acuminata. Fig. 17, Sphenopteris affinis. Fig. 18, Pecopterisheterophylla. Fig. 19, Sphenopteris dilitata. .d i HISTORY OF PLANTS. 59 one can scarce examine a fragment of coal beside oneshousehold fire that is not charged with their carbonizedremains. Though marked by certain peculiarities of struc-ture, they bore, as is shown by the fossil trunks of Grant onand Craigleith, the familiar outlines of true coniferous trees;and would mayhap have differed no more in appearancefrom their successors of the same order that now live in ourforests, than these differ from the conifers of New Zealandor of i^ew South Wales. We have thus, in the numerous. ALTINGIA EXCELSA. Norfolk Island Pine. (Young Specimen.) ferns and numerous coniferous trees of the Coal Measures,known objects by which to conceive of some of the moreprominent features of the flora of which they composed solarge a part. We have not inadequate conceptions of atonce the giants of its forests and the green swathe of itsplains and hill-sides, — of its mighty trees and its dwarfunderwood^ — of its cedars of Lebanon, so to speak, and itshyssop of the wall. But of an intermediate class we have 60 THE PALiEONTOLOGICAL Fig. 21.,
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