LIFE IN SECONDARY TIMES 245 



among them the first to appear, as we should expect, were those 

 having catkins : Poplar, Willow, Birch, Beach, Oak, Walnut, 

 Myrica, and their near relatives the Plane-trees and Liquid- 

 ambers ; then the Maple, Eucalyptus, and Laurel, with 

 numerous stamens having traces of ramifications, and Myrtaceae 

 with ramified stamens. With them there were certain plants 

 with isomeric flowers and even inferior ovaries, such as Ivy 

 and Dogberry-tree, and gamopetalous plants like Viburnum 

 and Oleander. The Monocotyledons were already represented 

 by several families having large flowers : Liliaceae, Alismaceae, 

 Pandanus, Palms, and even Aroideoe. It must not be forgotten 

 that, once they had become differentiated from the isomeric 

 Dicotyledons, the Monocotyledons must have developed 

 parallel with them and even rapidly, for they could no longer 

 modify themselves except in details. 



Everything indicates a very mild climate during this period. 

 Seasons did alternate in the regions around the Poles (p. 51), 

 but everywhere else the temperature remained practically 

 uniform. There were no annual periods of frost capable 

 of holding up vital processes, no seasons of torpor or death, 

 and even in the polar regions, although Palms were absent, 

 the Bread-fruit tree, nowadays confined to the tropics, was 

 growing in Greenland. On the western coast there was a 

 succession of three distinct and very rich floras, testifying to 

 a gradual cooling, for the tropical Cycads gradually disappeared, 

 and Dicotyledonous plants became more and more important. 

 The Tethys — the great Mesogean Sea of Douville and the 

 Central Mediterranean of Neumayer — warmed by a two-fold 

 inflow of waters from the torrid zone, kept its two coasts at an 

 almost constant temperature considerably higher than that 

 of the Cote d'Azur. The two arms of this sea which enclosed 

 the North Atlantic continent ensured it a mild climate, and 

 the other continents were equally well endowed — all were 

 enveloped in a sort of Gulf Stream. The Madrepores built up 

 coral reefs all along the coasts right up to Scottish latitudes. 

 The Madrepores of this epoch were very like those of our own 

 day, and were Hexacorallia closely related to the builders 

 of the fringing reefs of the Red Sea and of New Caledonia, 

 the barrier-reefs of the north-west of Australia and the 

 Fijian archipelago, and the atolls, those remarkable ring- 

 shaped islands of the Pacific. Now we know that the 



