148 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



plants, and, strange to say, splendid specimens of 

 Compositae, the most highly specialized of flowers. 



The animal remains of the very highest Cretaceous 

 formation, the Laramie, are still Mesozoic, con- 

 taining bones of deinosaurian reptiles, an order on 

 the point of disappearing for ever. These are found 

 just below a bed of curious fossil fruits to which the 

 name of Esculus has been given. 



As in the Cretaceous period there are already to 

 be found "forty-eight genera belonging to at least 

 twenty-five families, running through the whole range 

 of the dicotyledonous exogens." We are, botani- 

 cally speaking, in modern times. Throughout the 

 Eocene and Miocene period the same glorious 

 vegetation flourished from the Equator almost to 

 the Pole, One cannot help feeling that the most 

 delightful conditions upon earth had passed away 

 before man, or at least man as we know him, 

 appeared upon the scene. The exquisite beauties of 

 the Laramie, the Eocene and Miocene landscapes 

 were lavished upon animals incapable of appreciating 

 them, except from a gastronomic point of view. 



During the Eocene and Miocene period all the 

 known orders of mammals made their appearance, 

 with an abundance of species, and a wealth of forms, 

 of which we can have but an imperfect idea. Sir 

 J. W. Dawson says, "It is certain that throughout 

 the later Miocene and earlier Pliocene the area of 

 land in the northern hemisphere was increasing, and 

 the large and varied continents were tenanted by the 

 noblest vegetation, and the grandest forms of mam- 

 malian life that the earth has ever witnessed. As 

 the Pliocene drew to a close, a gradual diminution 

 of warmth came on, accompanied by a submergence 

 of the land, and changes in the warm ocean-currents. 

 Thus gradually the summers became cooler and the 

 winters longer and more severe, the hill-tops became 

 covered with permanent snows, glaciers ploughed 

 their way downward into the plains, and masses of 

 floating ice cooled the seas. The more delicate 

 forms of vegetation were chilled to death, or obliged 

 to move farther south, and in many extensive regions, 

 hemmed in by the advance of the sea on the one hand 

 and land-ice on the other, they must have altogether 

 perished." 



Strange to say, the plants, which one would think 

 had less power than animals to fly before the advanc- 

 ing cold, suffered less than the mammals, which have 

 never recovered the shock of the glacial period, and 

 survive as a sadly diminished remnant. Comparing 

 the past climatic conditions of North America, 

 Europe and Asia, with the present state of these 

 regions, I think we are justified in considering that 

 we still live in the glacial period, and that future 

 geologists would so rank the insignificant deposits 

 dignified as Pleistocene. Whilst the upper part of 

 the Northern Hemisphere showed the highest 

 mountain peaks hardly emerging from their glacial 

 ice-sheet, the surviving animals and jilants fled 



towards the south ; in America to the regions about 

 the Gulf of Mexico, and in Europe and Asia to 

 Africa and the Indo-Chinese peninsulas. Thence 

 the survivors gradually returned as far north as 

 climatic conditions would ]3ermit. But the world is 

 hardly likely ever again to see tree-ferns, palms, 

 magnolias, and fig-trees in Canada and Siberia, still 

 less in Greenland and Spitzbergen, where the glacial 

 period still reigns in full intensity. 



The struggle with the adverse conditions of 

 climate has probably been highly beneficial to the 

 evolution of the higher qualities of man. W'e have 

 reason to think that he existed as a reasoning being 

 even in the enervating conditions of Miocene times, 

 but probably his reasoning faculties were more 

 rapidly developed during the exigencies of life in the 

 glacial period, than during long ages before. The 

 great ape Dryopithecus disappeared for ever before 

 the advancing cold, but man boldly struggled on, 

 catching seals and reindeer, and hunting the whale 

 in the estuary of the Firth of Forth. He thrives on 

 the cereals which he himself has brought to their 

 present perfection ; he has cultivated to the utmost 

 the fruits of temperate climates, and European man 

 has no reason to envy his Miocene progenitor 

 amongst his figs and palms. 



STUDIES IN ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



PARAGUAY Tea. or Mate.— This name is 

 applied to the prepared leaves of one of the 

 hollies— //fx Paragiiayensis, St. Hil. A small shrubby 

 tree with alternate, simple, ovate-lanceolate, smooth, 

 irregularly-serrated leaves. The plant is cultivated 



Fig. 103. — Flower of Coca {Erythroxylon coca). 



in the provinces of Brazil and Paraguay to a very 

 large extent for the sake of its leaves, which are used 

 for making tea, as the leaves of the Chinese plant 

 [T/it'a viridis and vars.) are used in this and other 

 countries. 



The means adopted for the preparation of the 

 leaves diff"er very widely from those employed for the 

 preparation of Indian and Chinese tea. Collectors 

 are sent out to cut the branches off the trees, and these 



t. 



