LIFE IN THE COAL PERIOD 221
or somewhat earlier, an extensive upheaval in many parts of the world, and mountains which have been now removed were upheaved to an altitude comparable with that of the highest ranges of the present day, and in the Punjab there then existed a snowy range with glaciers.
It was at this period that Kashmir was joined with the mainland of the Indian peninsula, which in its turn was joined with Africa, and now, at least, there must have been some vegetation and animal life. At this time of the Coal Measures —the remnants of forests growing in shallow sea-water — life was well advanced. Birds ana mammals and flowers, and the more highly de- veloped animals and plants had not yet appeared, but in the sea lived such things as star-fishes, shell-fishes, corals, sea-urchins, sea-lilies, sea- cucumbers, feather stars, sea-worms, sea-sniils, cuttlefish, water-fleas and mussels, shrimps, and lobsters and fishes. In the coal swamps were ferns, “horse-tails” similar to the horse-tails of the present day, but of gigantic size, club mosses more than fifty feet high, lycopods, trees with trunks fifty feet high, and which bore catkins ripening into berries not unlike those of yews. In the fresh water were some shell-fishes, crustaceans, and fishes. On
