president's address. 649 



this " despised, decrepit, or scarcely born fifth quarter of the world" 

 showing I venture to say much ignorance in so doing. He after- 

 wards states that what was begun in Australia was transported 

 to Europe by some supposed land bridge and there destroyed 

 while Australia stood still, and the latter is now being threatened 

 with almost total extinction, like the Pacific Islands. The 

 Australian types represented in Europe were, according to him, 

 Proteaceae, Epacrideae (through one leaf), Santalacese, Coniferse 

 and other orders. Araucariais especially mentioned as abundant in 

 some of the beds of Europe, and then he argues that the conditions 

 which allow of these types now in Australia must have existed in 

 Europe in Eocene times, and concludes that the climates were 

 similar. He seems ignorant of the fact that Arnucaria 

 Cunninghamii grows in the humid brushes of the coast region, 

 while Banksia and other genera are adapted to flourish under 

 drier continental conditions and poor soil. 



Unger requires other bridges for the explanation of his theories 

 and one of them is that by which he supposes the European flora 

 obtained a contingent from America, namely Atlantis. 



The opinion that there was an identity of forms in Europe in 

 Tertiary times and Australia of the present day took deep root, 

 and was still held by Heer, and is now by Ettingshausen and 

 others in spite of the fact that other botanists equally distin- 

 guished have proved the fallacy of the idea. 



Among these latter is Bentham, whose work on the Australian 

 Flora specially entitles him to authority. All Bentham's Presi- 

 dential Addresses to the Linnean Society are of the highest value, 

 and the one delivered in 1870 in which he specially devotes him- 

 self to the subject in hand, should be read by all interested in 

 this subject. In it he ably contests the new views, and referring 

 to Unger's tabular pedigrees of European forest races, he says that 

 his speculations have been deduced much more freely from con- 

 jectures than from facts, aud he mentions that the great majority 

 of fossil species are established on the authority of detached leaves 

 or fragments of leaves alone. He then points out the unreliability 

 of determination by leaves alone, and how even DeCandolle had 



