140 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



remarked, are most interesting 1 to biologists, inas- 

 much as it is here that they meet with the most 

 abundant evidences of the direct ancestry of living- 

 animals and plauts, which, since then, have been 

 distributed by subsequent physical changes over the 

 surface of the existing dry land. 



The fossil plants found in the lignite beds where 

 I lay, before I was disinterred by the curious 

 geologist to tell him my personal experience, them- 

 selves assist me in unfolding a wondrous tale. 

 Lignite beds, of Miocene age, are to be found in 

 Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Scotland, 

 Ireland, Devonshire, Iceland, Spitzbergen, Green- 

 land, Vancouver's Island, the Alaska islands, and 

 elsewhere. All the plants forming this lignite afford 

 most indisputable proof of their having grown on 

 or near the spots where they are now met with. 

 The petals, stamens, and pistils of the flowering 

 plants are preserved in the fossil state, together 

 with even the pollen ! Then you have the seeds, 

 in various degrees of ripeness, whilst the leaves of 

 many of the fossil plants have also fossil fioigi on 

 their backs, just as living plants are troubled with 

 "smut," " bunt," or "rust" now. 



The ferns are to be met with in the circinate, or 

 crosier-like condition, as well as with the ripe 

 spore- cases, ready to burst, on the backs of their 

 fronds. Nothing could be more conclusive as to 

 these various plants, flowering and cryptogamous, 

 having grown near where they are now found in a 

 fossil condition. The facts I have mentioned will 

 show you they could not have been drifted to their 

 present high latitudes by any flood or deluge, for 

 that would most assuredly have disturbed such 

 minute evidences of local growth as every bed of 

 lignite affords. 



Taking this fossil flora in its general character, 

 you will find that it is not so much what you would 

 call European as it is cosmopolitan. Of the eight 

 hundred species of flowering plants which geologists 

 have already discovered in the lignites of Switzer- 

 land, no fewer than three hundred and twenty-seven 

 species are evergreens. The majority of the species 

 found fossil here and in Germany have, since then, 

 migrated to the southern states of North America. 

 The next percentage continued European. Then, 

 in succession, you find other species which have 

 since been transferred to Asia, Africa, and even to 

 Australia. The preponderance of the American 

 types, both of plants and insects, is the peculiar 

 character of the Miocene fossils in all the deposits 

 of the old world. That I was perfectly correct in my 

 statement about the general increased temperature 

 of this period will be evident when I submit to you 

 a few analytical facts connected with this fossil 

 flora. You will have to seek for the European 

 types by the shores of the Mediterranean, and 

 for the Asiatic in the Caucasus and Asia Minor 

 generally. The camphor-trees — now such a charac- 



teristic element in Japanese scenery— are very 

 abundant in the fossil condition in Miocene strata so 

 far north as Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Greenland. 

 How imposing was the vegetable kingdom in Central 

 Europe at this time you may guess by my enume- 

 rating a few of the commouer genera. 



The Smilax grew everywhere, only equalled in 

 abundance by the Bryandroides. Nine species of 

 Fig-trees are known, whose nearest analogues now 

 flourish in India, Africa, and America. The 

 Proteacea family was very abundant. Fan-palms 

 were a peculiar feature in the Miocene landscape, 

 together with occasional Flabellarias. Other 

 species of Palm were not lackiug to adorn the 

 scenery with their graceful foliage. Then we had 

 abundance of Tulip-trees, Magnolias, Banlcsias, 

 Sequoias, Vines, &e. You may guess, therefore, at 

 the lovely aspect of the Swiss, Italian, German, and 

 English lakes, set in a frame of such lovely vege- 

 table forms, and whose banks were haunted by ani- 

 mals (which I shall presently describe) whose forms 

 and affinities were quite as foreign to anything 

 existing in Europe as can possibly be imagined. 



I was exhumed from my silent position in the 

 pretty valley of Bovey Tracey, in Devonshire, where 

 lignite occurs in several seams. There is not that 

 abundance of vegetable forms stored up here as is 

 to be met with elsewhere, especially in Switzerland. 

 As far as I can remember, only about fifty species 

 of plants are known from this English deposit. The 

 intervening beds tell a tale as to the denudation of 

 Dartmoor, and how the overlying beds came to be 

 chipped off the hard granitic boss. Twenty of the 

 plants found fossilized in this my bu-thplace are 

 common to those met with under similar circum- 

 stances in Switzerland. They are principally 

 Evergreen Oaks, Fig-trees, Fines, Laurels, Garde- 

 nias, &c. 



Miocene beds are met with also in the Isle of 

 Mull, and at Antrim, in Ireland, where the basaltic 

 columns of your Giant's Causeway are of this geolo- 

 gical age. The floral yield of these beds, however, 

 has been very small compared with the same strata 

 elsewhere. A peculiar species of Fern grew in what 

 is now the Isle of Mull ; but which was, at the'time 

 I am speaking of, part of an extended connection 

 with Ireland. The greatest interest connected with 

 these beds is that they contain evidence of the last 

 active volcanoes in the British islands. 



The Greenland lignite beds have yielded many 

 hundred species of fossil plants ; but their character 

 is hardly so well known as those of other deposits, 

 although it tells the same tale of a mixed flora. The 

 Iceland strata contain no fewer than four hundred 

 and twenty-six species of true flower-bearing plants, 

 exclusive of those belonging to the cryptogamous 

 class. Among them you may find such familiar 

 types as the Willow, Juniper, Rose, Oak, Plane-tree, 

 Maple, Vine, Walnut, &c, all of them now living 



