'Fauna Antiqua Sivaliensis', by Hugh Falconer, M.D.,
and Major P. T. Cautley.] -- Tr.
Having thus passed in review both the inorganic formations of the earth's
crust and the animal remains which are contained within it, another branch
of the history of the organic life still remains for our consideration,
viz., the epoch of vegetation, and the successive floras that have occurred
simultaneously with the increasing extent of the dry land and the
modifications of the atmosphere. The oldest transition strata, as we have
already observed, contain merely cellular marine plants, and it is only in
the devonian system that a few cryptogamic forms of vascular plants
(Calamites and Lycopodiaceae) have been observed.*
[footnote] *Beyrich, in Karsteu's 'Archiv fur Mineralogie', 1844, bd.
xviii., s. 218.
Nothing appears to corroborate
p 279
the theoretical views that have been started regarding the simplicity of
primitive forms of organic life, ow that vegetable preceded animal life, and
that the former was necessarily dependent upon the latter. The existence of
races of men inhabiting the icy regions of the North Polar lands, and whose
nutriment is solely derived from fish and cetaceans, shows the possibility
of maintaining life independently of vegetable substances.
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