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Updated: May 2, 2025
The masses of sandstone which are found in the carboniferous formation, exhibit in a large degree these wedge-shaped strata, and we have therefore a clue at once, both as to their propinquity to sea and land, and also as to the manner in which they were formed. Productus. There is one thing more, too, about them.
In the distance could be heard the crash of great charges of dynamite, by which the carboniferous rocks were blasted. Here masses of coal were loosened by pick-ax and crowbar; there the perforating machines, with their harsh grating, bored through the masses of sandstone and schist. Hollow, cavernous noises resounded on all sides.
That such was the case we can hardly doubt, after the facts revealed by recent investigations of the Carboniferous deposits.
Between the Carboniferous and Silurian strata there intervenes, in the United States and Canada, a great series of formations referable to the Devonian group, comprising some strata of marine origin abounding in shells and corals, and others of shallow-water and littoral origin in which terrestrial plants abound.
Even in the Carboniferous period but few are to be found: they had their day in the Silurian and Devonian ages. In consequence of their solid exterior, the preservation of these animals is very complete; and their attitudes are often so natural, and the condition of all their parts so perfect, that one would say they had died yesterday rather than countless centuries ago.
The ANNULOSA. The Carboniferous Insecta and Arachnida are neither less specialized, nor more embryonic, than those 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.
Dawson in the carboniferous strata of North America; but now land-shells have been found in the lias. In regard to mammiferous remains, a glance at the historical table published in Lyell's Manual, will bring home the truth, how accidental and rare is their preservation, far better than pages of detail.
If we take now a general view of the aspect of Europe at the close of the Carboniferous epoch, we shall see that the large island of Scandinavia is completed, while the islands of Bohemia and Belgium have approached each other by their gradual increase till they are divided only by a comparatively narrow channel.
With respect to the terrestrial productions which lived during the Secondary and Palaeozoic periods, it is superfluous to state that our evidence from fossil remains is fragmentary in an extreme degree. For instance, not a land shell is known belonging to either of these vast periods, with one exception discovered by Sir C. Lyell in the carboniferous strata of North America.
We may say that, as far as our knowledge goes, of every thirty species of animals and plants in the Carboniferous period, twenty-eight were blotted out of the calendar of life for ever; one survived by undergoing such modifications that it became a new species, and one was found fit to endure the new conditions for a time.
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