What could be more surprising than the aspect of this exuberant vegetation!--these immense Sigillarias, which reigned over the forest! these Lepidodendrons, with flexible and slender stems! these Lomatophloyos, which present themselves as _herbaceous_ trees of gigantic height, furnished with verdant leaflets! these Calamites, forty feet high! these elegant arborescent Ferns, with airy foliage, as finely cut as the most delicate lace! Nothing at the present day can convey to us an idea of the prodigious and immense extent of never-changing verdure which clothed the earth, from pole to pole, under the high temperature which everywhere prevailed over the whole terrestrial globe. In the depths of these inextricable forests parasitic plants were suspended from the trunks of the great trees, in tufts or garlands, like the wild vines of our tropical forests. They were nearly all pretty, fern-like plants--_Sphenopteris_, _Hymenophyllites_, &c.; they attached themselves to the stems of the great trees, like the orchids and _Bromeliaceæ_ of our times. [Illustration: Fig. 39.--Trunk of Calamites. One-fifth natural size.] [Illustration: Fig. 40.--Trunk of Sigillaria. One-tenth natural size.] The margin of the waters would also be covered with various plants with light and whorled leaves, belonging, perhaps, to the Dicotyledons; _Annularia fertilis_, _Sphenophyllites_, and _Asterophyllites_. How this vegetation, so imposing, both on account of the dimensions of the individual trees and the immense space which they occupied, so splendid in its aspect, and yet so simple in its organisation, must have differed from that which now embellishes the earth and charms our eyes! It certainly possessed the advantage of size and rapid growth; but how poor it was in species--how uniform in appearance! No flowers yet adorned the foliage or varied the tints of the forests. Eternal verdure clothed the branches of the Ferns, the Lycopods, and Equiseta, which composed to a great extent the vegetation of the age. The forests presented an innumerable collection of individuals, but very few species, and all belonging to the lower types of vegetation. No fruit appeared fit for nourishment; none would seem to have been on the branches. Suffice it to say that few terrestrial animals seem to have existed yet; animal life was apparently almost wholly confined to the sea, while the vegetable kingdom occupied the land, which at a later period was more thickly inhabited by air-breathing animals. Probably a few winged insects (some coleoptera, orthoptera, and neuroptera) gave animation to the air while exhibiting their variegated colours; and it was not impossible but that many pulmoniferous mollusca (such as land-snails) lived at the same time.