But the Earth was not fit for the habitation of man. The fruits of the trees were not such as he could have eaten, and their wood was not hard enough to build houses of. Still it was being got ready for him, and not a leaf waved uselessly in the bright, warm air, and not a tree fell to the ground, but it was to be turned into coal, and to come forth again one day a hard black lump, without any of its former beauty, but to give back the light and heat it had gathered from the sun ages and ages ago. Many periods in the Earth’s history have passed since the coal period, and in every one of these the trees have been increasing in perfection, though there have never since been such great numbers of a few kinds growing. When we come to the more lately formed beds of earth we begin to find the cypress, willow, ash, oak, elm, and other forest trees which are living now. The trunks of these trees, blackened by age, lie buried in peat bogs and swamps all over Europe. The mighty Mississippi river brings down immense quantities of dead trees, and as these sink to the bottom near its mouth they are forming future coal beds. Along the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, too, and stretching far away under the German Ocean, is an old English forest. In some places the trunks of the buried trees may be seen standing upright just where they grew. The nets of the fishermen are continually bringing up pieces of wood, roots, and seeds; and when the sea washes away the soft cliffs here the bones, teeth, and tusks of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and other large animals which inhabited this forest, may be seen in great numbers. Down below the waves of ocean have these woods sunk with all their once living creatures, and though you may suppose that it must have been very long ago that they grew, they are of the same kind as those which now make the hills and valleys of England beautiful. Sometimes a forest must sink very fast, for travellers have told us how they have sailed on rivers and lakes over the tops of sunken trees, and, looking down into the clear water, have seen the branches waving below—tall trees standing upright at the bottom, and the boats sailing over their tops! We must now pass on to the living creatures which peopled the Earth, and their story can be told with more certainty than that of the perishable plants which clothed the surface of the ground, and, while they rendered it beautiful, also served as food and shelter for innumerable animals, and have become so useful to us as coal, lignite, black-lead, and other productions of ancient forests. FOOTNOTES: [1] Specimen in Table-case 15, Room V., North Gallery British Museum. [2] The name _Eophyton_ has also been suggested for the earliest vegetable forms. [3] Divisions A and B of Case 1, Room I., North Gallery, contain some of the oldest known fossil plants. [4] Fossil insects in Table-case No. 14, Room V. [5] In 81° 44′ N. latitude.