192 CHAPTER VI. Tell how resistless waters swept away The infant Flora of the ancient Earth: No more she clothes the rock with graceful flowers Her balmy groves no more the senses charm: She gives the social hearth to evening hours, And nerves with giant strength a mortal's feeble arm. OLD FRAGMENT. Ir happened one afternoon that Mrs. Beaufoy was engaged at the usual hour of walking, and Harry took a long ramble by himself. He did not return till his mother had nearly finished drinking tea, and then made his appearance with his pockets stuffed quite full, and a bundle of fern under his arm. "I have been to Kingley Bottom, mamma," said he, "and gathered some moss of every kind that grows there. They are so squeezed up in my pockets, (pulling hard to extricate his treasures as he spoke,) that you cannot see what beautiful specimens there are amongst them; but when I have shaken them out they will look quite another thing; and I mean to get up very early to-morrow, and make your moss-seat look as well as ever, before you come down stairs." "Thank you, Harry; it is very shabby at present, certainly, and I am glad you thought of reviving it; and also that you are come back in time to have some tea. I was just intending to ring for the table to be cleared. But what are you going to do with the bundle of fern you have thrown down upon the carpet?" "Oh, nothing particular; but they are very fine plants, and I happened to notice them as I came through one of the lanes. Just as I saw them, it came into my mind that there was some superstition about gathering fern-seeds making people invisible. You will not suppose I was silly enough to believe that; however, I thought there might be something connected with the story that I should like to know, and I brought a few branches away with me. But I dare say it is all nonsense." "Why, Harry, I believe the saying is pretty much on a par with another, which you may have heard, about putting salt upon a bird's tail in order to catch it—that is, gathering fern-seed was K supposed to be equally impracticable. The old botanists did not believe that ferns produced fruit or seed of any kind. Afterwards it was thought that these little protuberances, which you see are ranged with such exactness on the under side of the leaves, were the seeds; but later observers have discovered that they are capsules—that is, cells containing seeds. When these are ripe, the vessels that have sheltered them burst open, and the seeds, which are so minute as to resemble the pollen of flowers, escape, fall upon the ground, and give birth to another race of plants like that which produced them." "But look here, mamma; only look at the number of capsules, as you call them, on the back of this leaf! If these are all filled with seeds as small as pollen, what thousands and millions I must have brought home; and how astonishingly ferns must increase, when they happen to grow in a favourable situation." 66 Very true; and on this account ferns, mosses, lichens, and other plants of the same class, were peculiarly fitted for the place which seems to have been assigned them in the order of vegetation. Botanists regard these plants as occupying the 1 Loudon's Ency. of Plants, p. 876 and 1090. lowest station in the vegetable kingdom. We may therefore compare them with the zoophytes, which fill the corresponding rank amongst animals; and especially with the coral-worms, both on account of their apparent insignificance, and the wonderful effects produced by their agency. We have already spoken of the formation of coral-islands: what do you think, Harry, of those immense beds of coal which so essentially contribute to the comfort, and by their application to the purposes of machinery, so wonderfully increase the power of man ?what do you think of their originating from the mosses of the primitive world?" Harry looked at his mother with such an air of astonishment, that she smiled and said: "This seems almost as wonderful to you as the fluidity of the chalk-hills." "No, no, mamma," replied he, recovering himself; "that was the first surprise the first suspicion I had of the real origin of things being so different from their present appearance. To be sure, no two substances can be more unlike than this soft, green moss, and coal ; and I hope you will tell me how people ever came to imagine a thing which seems so very improbable." "We have no account of those early revolutions which were the means of producing the present state of our earth; but there is such a beautiful harmony and simplicity in that arrangement which, though undoubtedly the contrivance of the great Architect, we are accustomed to call the order of nature, that by observing what now takes place, we can, in many instances, form very probable conjectures of what happened in distant ages. Now, Harry, you may yourself observe the manner in which the first impulses of vegetative life are manifested. Most plants, you know, spring out of the ground; but as the mould in which they grow was itself formed by the decay of former plants, we must direct our attention to such vegetables as can grow without mould. These are the mosses and lichens, which you may see in abundance on the thatch and tiles of the neighbouring cottages; on the trunks of trees; on any old piece of paling, or walls of brick or stone; in short, wherever care is not taken to prevent their increase. The minute seeds of these plants are continually floating in the air; and wherever they fall and rest, they are ready to take root and increase-appearing to be the means appointed by Providence for beginning the formation of that rich black earth we call mould this is almost entirely produced by |