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The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
161
These
great
trees,
the
Lepidodendrons,
the
Sigillarias,
and
the
Calamites,
together
with
large
tree-ferns,
are
the
chief
plants
that
we
know
of
in
the
coal-forests.
It
seems
very
strange
at
first
that
they
should
have
been
so
large
when
their
descendants
are
now
so
small,
but
if
you
look
at
our
chief
plants
and
trees
now,
you
will
find
that
nearly
all
of
them
bear
flowers,
and
this
is
a
great
advantage
to
them,
because
it
tempts
the
insects
to
bring
them
the
pollen-dust,
as
we
saw
in
the
last
lecture.
Now
the
Lipidodendrons
and
their
companions
had
no
true
flowers,
but
only
these
seed-cases
which
we
have
mentioned;
but
as
there
were
no
flowering
plants
in
their
time,
and
they
had
the
ground
all
to
themselves,
they
grew
fine
and
large.
By-and-by,
however,
when
the
flowering
plants
came
in,
these
began
to
crowd
out
the
old
giants
of
the
coal-forests,
so
that
they
dwindled
and
dwindled
from
century
to
century
till
their
great-great-
grandchildren,
thousands
of
generations
after,
only
lift
up
their
tiny
heads
in
marshes
and
on
heaths,
and
tell
us
that
they
were
big
once
upon
a
time.
And
indeed
they
must
have
been
magnificent
in
those
olden
days,
when
they
grew
thick
and
tall
in
the
lonely
marshes
where
plants
and
trees
were
the
chief
inhabitants.
We
find
no
traces
in
the
clay-beds
of
the
coal
to
lead
us
to
suppose
that
men
lived
in
those
days,
nor
lions,
nor
tigers,
nor
even
birds
to
fly
among
the
trees;
but
these
grand
forests
were
almost
silent,
except
when
a
huge
animal
something
like
a
gigantic
newt
or
frog
went
croaking
through
the
marsh,
or
a
kind
of
grasshopper
chirruped
on
the
land.
But
these
forms
of
life
were
few
and
far
between,
compared
to
the
huge
trees
and
tangled
masses
of
ferns
and
reeds
which
covered
the
whole
ground,
or
were
reflected
in
the
bosom
of
the
large
pools
and
lakes
round
about
which
they
grew.
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