FLORISSANT; A MIOCENE POMPEII 119 



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recently been unpacked, and their study has scarcely more than begun. 

 The shores of the lake, while doubtless steep in places, must have 

 sloped gradually at many points, and there was much shallow water. 

 In this grew the broad-leafed cat-tail of those days, the Typha les- 

 quereuxi. The remains of its leaves are found in the greatest abun- 

 dance and upon some of them it has even been possible to detect a 

 fungus, which has been called Didymosphceria betheli. In the water 

 near the bases of the cat-tails was a duckweed. Water lilies have not 

 been found; a round water-lily-like leaf proves to belong to a semi- 

 aquatic plant, a kind of frog's-bit. A small rush, a species of J uncus, 

 scattered its fruits everywhere. Small fresh-water molluscs, similar to 

 those of the present day, abounded. There were bivalved forms 

 (Sphcerium), and representatives of the pond snails Lymncea and Plan- 

 orb is. Dragon-fly and May-fly nymphs were excessively numerous, espe- 

 cially the latter; while the adult insects flew along the shore. Minute 

 bivalved Crustacea were in myriads, but no crayfishes have been de- 

 tected, and there is no reason for supposing that any existed. In 

 slightly deeper water, there were innumerable fishes, and well-preserved 

 specimens of several species have been obtained. From the fish speci- 

 mens actually secured, one might suppose that these animals were 

 comparatively rare; but this idea is contradicted by the abundance of 

 their excrement, often containing ants and other insects which may 

 have been killed by the volcanic fumes or ash. It would seem, indeed, 

 that at the beginning of an eruption, the fishes gorged themselves with 

 the falling insects; but when things got too hot for them, they mostly 

 retreated in safety to deeper waters, where they escaped entombment. 

 No frogs or turtles have been obtained, much to our disappointment; 

 it is hardly to be supposed that there were none — we may rather antici- 

 pate that they will be unearthed by some happy collector of the future. 

 Near the shores, the principal trees were the narrow-leafed cottonwood 

 — differing little from the one common in Colorado to-day — a kind of 

 beech, Fagus longifolia, and a Myrica with slender twigs, which may 

 not have been more than a shrub. A little more distant from the water, 

 perhaps, were the redwoods, Sequoia haydeni, very like those growing 

 in California at the present time. Under or near the redwood grew 

 the incense cedar, a tree now confined to the Pacific coast (where it 

 still grows with Sequoia) and China, though a closely allied genus 

 occurs in the southern hemisphere. There were no firs or spruces, 

 but two or three species of pine trees were plentiful, probably upon the 

 tops of the little hills ; and a shrubby or tree-like juniper — like the 

 so-called cedar of modern Colorado — was a conspicuous object. The 

 warmth and dampness of the climate are indicated by an abundance of 

 ferns, such as may be seen in the forests along the Hudson at the 

 present time. Indeed, the whole aspect of the country must have been 



