. Fig. II. The vertebral column, as in the sharks, enters the upper flap of the tail and renders it strikingly unsymmetrical. The Ganoids are, as comparative anatomy has proved with certainty, a development of the shark-like fishes, if not decidedly of a higher grade. The Ganoids, there- fore, presuppose the shark. The carboniferous period owes its name to the enor- mous accumulation occurring in its midst, of the remains of terrestrial plants, fern-like Calamites, and more especially of Sigillaria and Lepidodendra, stand- ing between vascular Cryptogams and Conifers. They formed tropical bog-
. Fig. II. The vertebral column, as in the sharks, enters the upper flap of the tail and renders it strikingly unsymmetrical. The Ganoids are, as comparative anatomy has proved with certainty, a development of the shark-like fishes, if not decidedly of a higher grade. The Ganoids, there- fore, presuppose the shark. The carboniferous period owes its name to the enor- mous accumulation occurring in its midst, of the remains of terrestrial plants, fern-like Calamites, and more especially of Sigillaria and Lepidodendra, stand- ing between vascular Cryptogams and Conifers. They formed tropical bog-forests, such as Franz Unger some years ago attempted to restore in an ingenious compo- sition. In these steaming primaeval forests, differing from the early beginnings of antecedent periods by their extent and luxuriance, new phases of animal life become manifest—scorpions, myriapods, and in- sects—in other words, air-breathing Articulata, and likewise the first air-breathing V^ertebrata. The latter,
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Keywords: ., bookauthorschmidtd, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1896
