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The ANNULOSA. The Carboniferous Insecta and Arachnida are neither less specialized, nor more embryonic, than these that now live, nor are the Liassic Cirripedia and Macrura; while several of the Brachyura, which appear in the Chalk, belong to existing genera; and none exhibit either an intermediate, or an embryonic, character.
Of reptiles, we read that in 1710 the lowest known were in the Permian; in 1844 they were detected in the Carboniferous; and in 1852 in the Upper Devonian. While of the Mammalia the list shows that in 1798 none had been discovered below the Middle Eocene: but that in 1818 they were discovered in the Lower Oolite; and in 1847 in the Upper Trias.
The cockroaches of the carboniferous epoch are exceedingly similar to those which now run about our coal-cellars; and its locusts, termites and dragon-flies are closely allied to the members of the same groups which now chirrup about our fields, undermine our houses, or sail with swift grace about the banks of our sedgy pools.
There were a large number of these Entomostraca in the Carboniferous period, a group which is chiefly represented among living Crustacea by an exceedingly minute kind of Shrimp; but in those days they were of the size of our Crabs and Lobsters, or even larger, and the Horse-Shoe Crab still maintains their claim to a place among the larger and more conspicuous members of the class.
Creeping and crawling creatures too, that we could crush with the heel, are but the last and puny descendants of mighty and terrible monsters that once rolled and crashed through the fetid forests of the carboniferous era.
The mass of red and brown sandstone in these mountains is estimated at not less than 10,000 feet, clearly intercalated between the Carboniferous and Silurian strata.
"Men might suffocate for lack of air, or an explosion might follow from the collection of the dreaded 'fire damp' ignited by some miner's lamp." "Fire damp?" repeated Mrs. Morton. "That is really natural gas, isn't it?" "Yes, they're both 'marsh gas' caused by the decay of the huge ferns and plants of the carboniferous age.
In countries where wood is scarce peat is cut out, dried, and used for fuel. The larger part of the coal in the eastern United States was formed during the Carboniferous period. That part of our country was then low and swampy; but the West, which is now an elevated area of mountains and plateaus, was at that time largely beneath the ocean.
Sir R. Murchison groups with this upper division of the Old Red of Scotland certain light-red and yellow sandstones and grits which occur in the northernmost part of the mainland, and extend also into the Orkney and Shetland Islands. They contain Calamites and other plants which agree generically with Carboniferous forms.
These elevations naturally gave rise to depressions between themselves and the land on either side of them, and caused also so many counter-slopes dipping toward the uniform southern slope already formed at the north. These were the inland seas of the Carboniferous period. Here, again, we must infer the successive stages of a history which we can read only in its results.
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