AGE OF THE LIGNITIC DETEEMINED BY ITS FLORA. 345 



111 icinarkiiig upon the first vcgetalilc remains wliicli he had to deter- 

 mine, the celebrated professor of Montreal, J. W. Dawson, says "that the 

 ])lants of the first group are for the most part identical with those found by 

 American geologists in the Fort Union series, and which have been deter- 

 mined by Prof Newberry and by j\Ir. Lesquercux. They are also similar to 

 plants collected by Dr. Richardson in the Lignitic series of the Mackenzie 

 River, as described by Ileer, and represented by specimens in the collection 

 of the geological survey, etc. They also approach very closely the so-called 

 Miocene floras of Europe." He then adds, — "If we were to regard the affin- 

 ities of the plants merely, and to compare tlieni with the ]\Iiocene of other 

 countries, and also to consider the fact that several of the species are identical 

 with those still living, and that the whole facies of the flora coincides with 

 that of modern temperate America, little hesitation would be felt in assigning 

 the formation in which they occur to the Miocene period. On the other 

 hand, when we consider the fact -that the lower beds of this formation hold 

 the remains of reptiles of Mesozoic types, that the beds pass downward into 

 rocks holding Baculitcs and Ivocernml, and that a ilora essentially similar is 

 found associated with Cretaceous remains both in Dakota and Vancouver 

 Island,* we should be inclined to assign them at least to the base of the 

 Eocene." 



From this it seems that Prof Dawson does not separate the two essen- 

 tial groups of the Tertiary: the upper one with the Miocene types, a flora 

 indicating a temperate climate like that of the middle zone of the United 

 States; the lower one with its numerous species of Palms, of Ficus, etc., 

 evidently representing a subtropical vegetation. In this last flora, that of the 

 lower group,now under examination, there is no species identical with or anal- 

 ogous to any of those of the Cretaceous Dakota group. The extraordinary 

 separation of both floras has bpen sufficiently established by former compar- 

 ison and description of species. In the upper stage, or Miocene, some rare 

 types of the Cretaceous reappear. Thus apparently the specimens obtained 

 ]jy the survey of Canada mostly represent our third group, or the Upper 

 Lignitic of that country ; for Prof Dawson describes and enumerates from 

 Porcupine Creek seventeen species, all of Miocene type, and most of them 

 formerly described l)y Prof Heer and Prof Newlierry from the Miocene 



* This assertion may be right for Vancouver, but is not to for the Dakota group. No species of the 

 Dakota group has been found until now at Vancouver whose vegetable types, as far as known, correspond 

 with those of the Lower Lignitic. 



