Tertiary Period. 85 



transition between the forms of the Secondary epochs and 

 those of the Tertiary epochs, which was not suspected a few 

 years ago. But while, at this period, the Angiosperms ap- 

 pear nearly to equal the Gymnosperms, in the Tertiary period, 

 they greatly exceed them ; while at the Cretaceous epoch, 

 there are still Cycadese and Coniferae allied to the genera in- 

 habiting tropical regions; during the Tertiary period, the 

 Cycadeae appear to have been completely wanting in Europe, 

 and the Coniferse belong to the genera of the temperate re- 

 gions. 



" Notwithstanding this assemblage of characters. common 

 to the whole Tertiary period, there are evidently notable diffe- 

 rences in the generic and specific forms, and in the^ predo- 

 minance of certain families at different epochs of this long 

 period ; but here we often experience serious difficulties in 

 establishing a uniformity as to time among the numerous 

 local formations which constitute the different Tertiary for- 

 mations. In assigning the different localities where fossil 

 vegetables have been observed to the principal divisions of 

 the Tertiary series, I have not followed exactly the bases ad- 

 mitted by M. linger in his Synopsis ; I have approached 

 nearer to the distribution adopted by M. Raulin, in his Me- 

 moir on the Transformations of the Flora of Central Europe 

 during the Tertiary period (Ann. Sc. Nat., t. x., p. 193, Oct. 

 1848), which refers many of the formations, classified by M. 

 Unger in the Miocene division, to the Pliocene, or most re- 

 cent epoch. Yet, according to the advice of M. Elie de Beau- 

 mont, I have not placed all the Lignite formations of Ger- 

 many in the Pliocene division, as M. Raulin has done, nor 

 all of them in the Miocene division, like M. Unger ; but, con- 

 formably to the old opinion of my father, 1 have left the 

 Lignites from the shores of the Baltic, which include amber, 

 in the inferior division of the old basins of Paris, London, 

 and Brussels, considering them cotemporary with the Sois- 

 son Lignites. Those of the banks of the Rhine, of Wetter- 

 avia and Westphalia, are arranged in the Miocene division ; 

 those of Styria, and part of Bohemia, on the contrary, are 

 placed among the recent or Pliocene formations. 



" This distribution agrees pretty generally with the nature 



