2. That monocotyledons are more capable of resisting the action of water, particularly palms and scitamineous plants; but that grasses and sedges perish.

3. That fungi, mosses, and all the lowest forms of vegetation disappear.

4. That ferns have a great power of resisting water if gathered in a green state, not one of those submitted to the experiment having disappeared; but that their fructification perished."

On these Dr. Buckland remarks in a note

"It may be further noticed, that as both trunks and leaves of angiospermous dicotyledonous plants have been preserved abundantly in the tertiary formations, there appears to be no reason why, if plants of this tribe had existed during the secondary and transition periods, they should not also occasionally have escaped destruction in the sedimentary deposits of these earlier epochs."*

The result of this evidence respecting those minor classes of the cryptogamous plants whose infrequency amongst the fossil specimens found in the strata has occasioned this enquiry, seems to be, that while, on the one hand, the experiments of Professor Lindley afford sufficient reason for removing any anxiety which might arise from their prevailing absence, where fossil remains of other orders are so abundant; the testimony, on the other hand, of Dr. M'Culloch and concurring writers shows, that they are occasionally met with in a fossilized state; thus making it manifest that the experience of fossil botanists corresponds precisely with what might have been expected from the perishable nature of those minute cryptogamous plants, and the attendant circumstances during the period of their existence a corroboration which ought entirely to remove any lurking doubt that may have remained.

Generally, it may be asserted with regard to them, that their rudimentary character-forming, as by concurring testimony they seem to have done, the primary elements in coal through its gradations of peat, lignite, &c.—would necessarily expose them to be wholly obliterated by transmutation during a lapse of ages into carbonaceous material; it being physically impos

* Prof. Buckland's Bridg. Treat. vol. i. pp. 410, 481.

sible to possess both the coal fully formed and the separate elementary materials of which it is composed; while, in other cases where circumstances were not conducive to their transmutation into coal, the effects produced by immersion, as shown by Professor Lindley, may have taken place, and the rudimentary, perishable descriptions of plants have disappeared, although the higher and more robust grades of cryptogames resisted the action and became fossilized.

It has not unfrequently occurred to us that, reposing with confidence on the truthfulness of the record of Scripture, and on the soundness of the views we have adopted by its assistance, we might have left this question to adjust itself in the course of time, and when discussion had more thoroughly brought to light the direction which the line of separation takes between flowering and flowerless plants in the Vegetable Kingdom. Perhaps we would not have mooted this question at all, had it not been from a feeling, something between a desire to leave no weak point behind us unexplored, and that of pushing our principle as far as it will go; and with it to test the soundness of the conclusions of those who have dedicated themselves to the fields of labour through which we now wend our way. Should it be considered rather too bold an attempt, in the present state of the question, to endeavour to reconcile and thoroughly to make at one so general an assumption as the non-rotation of the earth while darkness reigned over it, with the minute and intimate nature, habits, and perfect adaptation of the lowest orders in the most inferior class of plants; and that, too, notwithstanding the divergency of opinion prevailing amongst botanists as to their systematic classification, it must be attributed only to the perfect confidence in the general soundness of our views, and in the firmness of the foundation on which they all repose; while we think it does not add a little to their corroboration to find that, without the slightest diminution of our general confidence, it is precisely at the same point where botanists have not sufficiently made up their minds as to the classification of the objects of their research, that we begin to falter and be at a loss how to proceed. We firmly believe that the faithful application of the comprehensive rule laid down in

Scripture will clear up both of our paths, and show us that although during the protracted period of non-rotation and darkness there existed at the bottom of the atmosphereless ocean innumerable families of plants, not one of them was furnished with any traces of either flowering or seeding processes, in the true and full acceptation of these terms. That, in fine, although for ages previously there had been myriads of what are now called imperfect flowerless plants secreting carbonaceous material for future purposes, there was not, until the period represented by the third day of the Mosaic week, a single perfect or flowering, seeding plant within the whole range of the solar system!

The difficulty of another description, to which we alluded, namely, that of "proving too little," still remains to be disposed of. For, after it has been made out that the whole of the objects comprising the cryptogamous class of plants have been discovered in a fossil state, and that they could have existed and propagated in a submerged condition, the doubt still remains whether they could have done so in the waters of the primeval ocean, considering them to have been impregnated with saline materials, as manifested, amongst other vestiges, by the extensive deposits of salt found in the new red sandstone, and other associated formations. Before, however, this explanation can be satisfactorily given, or conclusively understood and relied on, we shall require to have our labours considerably more advanced, and our cosmographical views further unfolded. When that is the case we have no doubt but we shall make it abundantly evident that although in reality the waters of the primeval ocean did contain all the elements which go to the formation of salt, yet other co-existent ingredients held these in a different state of combination, and caused the entire mass to be altogether distinct from the saline waters of our present seas. We shall then, also, be in a position satisfactorily to account for the deposition of culinary and other native salts in the new red sandstone and associated formations, and thus at one and the same time remove two obstacles to the complete establishing of the one great fact, That during a long but indefinite period of its early geological history, the Earth did not rotate around its axis.

SECTION III.

THE VEGETABLE ORGANISMS OF THE NON-ROTATORY PERIOD.

CHAPTER VII.

Another brief review of the progress made, and its application to the development of the general argument. Adaptation of the Plants of the nonrotatory period to the state of creation during that epoch. Fronds and folliacious appendages of Cryptogames described-contrasted with the respiratory expansions of Phanogames; and the design of the former being demonstrated, they are shown to be in harmony with the effects which the flowerless plants were intended to produce, namely, absorption from the surrounding water, retention of carbonic acid, and deposition, by their roots, to assist in forming the carboniferous strata. Short concluding observation: the continuity with which the subject has been traced to the present convergent point.

HAVING reached another convenient resting place, we may again look around us for a moment on commencing this chapter, to consider what has been done, and to see how far we have advanced in the general argument, which has been somewhat delayed by the investigation of those two minor points which threatened to oppose our progress, when we had acquired a sufficiently accurate knowledge of the distinguishing characteristics of the three classes into which all known plants are grouped by the natural system of botany; and had compared them, thus arranged, with the comprehensive description given in Scripture of the creation of vegetable substances, in doing which we found, that this latter had reference merely to seeding and fruit bearing plants, to the exclu

*

Genesis i. 11, 12.

sion of all others- a singular anomaly which constrained us to look elsewhere and to other manifestations of creative energy for the origin of the flowerless, seedless, fruitless plants. During our research we found, that writers on fossil botany had announced their having discovered amongst the stony tombs of earlier geological periods, the fossilized remains of plants, some of them in perfect preservation, resembling in almost every respect the Cryptogames or Acotyledons, whose origin we were in quest of: a remarkable coincidence in epoch, locality, and character of no small importance to our argument, and leaving little doubt on the mind, that the command given on the third day of the Mosaic week had exclusive reference to the two more perfect classes of flowering, seeding plants in correspondence with the altered condition of our planet after the formation of the light; whilst the Cryptogames had existed during the period of darkness or of nonrotation. This led to a new set of enquiries, namely, to prove the adaptation of this latter class to the primeval condition of the earth; but as direct evidence of this was not attainable, we endeavoured indirectly to make good that position, by showing that the two other classes, comprising the flowering plants, could not possibly have then existed; although these disabilities neither apply by assumption, nor yet by the direct experience of botanists, against the possibility of at least the greater proportion of the cryptogamous plants, or plants analogous to them, growing under the supposed circumstances of the earth previous to its rotation. While engaged in these enquiries we brought out, in the clearest manner possible, that the respiratory functions of plants, which reside in their leaves and other green parts, together with the decomposition of carbonic acid, and the fixation of carbon, depend on the direct light of the sun's rays acting upon these folliaceous appendages. These facts being at direct variance with a state of matters which would apply to plants existing during the non-rotatory period, and while as yet there was no sun-light (the fundamental principles of this theory), it consequently becomes imperative on us, in continuation, to

* Theorems, Nos. 44, 118, and 120.