"In a valley, centuries ago,
Grew a little fern-plant, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender,
Waving in the wind, crept down so low;
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it;
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it;
Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it;
But no foot of man e'er came that way,
Earth was young and keeping holiday."
We can speak of the roof and the floor of a coal-mine, because the coal
lies in what are called seams, between layers of slate or hard clay. I
cannot tell you much about the sedges and reeds and giant ferns, the
remains of which have been found in these seams of coal, but I know that
they are of the same kind as plants which are now found in damp and warm
places, though they were giants indeed compared with them. Some of these
old-world plants would not grow in our country now, but there are great
mare's-tails, just the same as the small ones which I have often found
beside a pool of black water on an Irish bog; and I have read that some
plants with stems fifty feet long, which are found in coal, are of the same
kind as a pretty little moss which grows upon the mountains almost all over
England.
You remember the story about the boy who was brought up in a mine. Now I
want to tell you about a little girl who did not live in a coal-mine, but
was often taken there by her father. Her mother had died when she was a
baby, and as she grew older her father was her constant friend, and loved
his little daughter so much that he liked to have her always near him.
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