436 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



admirable way. This scientist also made us acquainted with 

 a fresh-water Cretaceous formation which he discovered near 

 Bahia. During the Tertiary period the sea extended to the 

 Andes, where near Pebas a brackish-water fauna was deposited, 

 which lias been the subject of very careful study by Dr. 

 Boettger. But lately Ochsenius" has shown that considerable 

 parts of the Andes were upheaved to their present height 

 towards or after the end of the Tertiary era. In Chile 

 (lat. 37*^ S.), as w^ell as in Bolivia (Potosi), Tertiary plants have 

 been found, which have been studied by Engelhard. Those 

 from Chile have not been published yet, but they belong to 

 genera living now in tropical South America, eastward of the 

 Andes, indicating a warm, humid climate, and are now ex- 

 tinct on the western side of the Andes. The same applies to 

 the species of Cassia, Swcetia, Leptolobium, Mijrica, &c., found, 

 near Potosi (lat. 19° S.), at an altitude of 4,200 metres, which 

 cannot have been grown at such an elevation as they are 

 found at now. 



We therefore have to consider the present flora of Chile, 

 which is adapted to the more rough climate of the Recent 

 period, as having in a great measure arrived from the south. 

 It was preceded during the Tertiary era, when the Andes had 

 only a small elevation, by a tropical flora, which spread to 

 Brazil and the adjoining tropical countries whilst the Andes 

 were being upheaved. How many changes in the animal 

 kingdom may have been going on hand-in-hand with the 

 alterations in the flora? I only wish to point out the absence 

 of Hyla in Chile, which genus probably was represented in 

 the Archiplataic area as w^ell as the CystignatJiida, both of 

 which are found in Australia, and missing in x\frica — facts of 

 importance awaiting interpretation. Chile, in my opinion, must 

 have had species of Hyla. during Tertiary times, although 

 no representatives of the Hylidss. maintained themselves in the 

 country. 



Ochsenius recalls to mind that, according to Conte, the 

 upheaval of the Sierra Nevada, in California, also took place in 

 Post-tertiary times ; that in Lake Titicaca a relic-fauna of 

 Crustacea from the Pacific Ocean is living, and that Agassiz 

 found in its neighbourhood, 900 metres altitude, fossil corals 

 corresponding with recent forms of the Pacific. 



The upheaval of the Cretaceous formations in Peru and 

 Bolivia is, according to Ochsenius, essentially due to events 

 during the Quaternary period, whilst the Chilean Tertiary coal- 

 bearing littoral sank at the same time. To such a relative 



* Zeitschriffc cler deutschen Geologischen Gesellschaft, 1886, pp. 766- 

 772; and " Die Natur," Halle, Jahrg. 361, 887, No. 40, 41 ; and Jahrg. 39, 

 18'J0, No. 38. 



