190 THE MEDALS OF CREATION. Cuap. VI. 
Nipapives. Lign. 63. (Pict. Atlas, pl. vi. vii.) —The 
most remarkable fruits in the above catalogue are those 
which, from their appearance when compressed, are known 
to collectors by the name of “ petrified figs” (Lign. 63, fig. 
9,10). Some specimens attain a considerable size, and are 
from five to seven inches long. The nut, and the pericarp 
or shell, are often well preserved. These fossils were referred 
to the Cocos by Mr. Parkinson, but they have not a ligneous ~ 
endocarp with three pores as in the Cocoa-nut. 
Mr. Bowerbank has shown that they are nearly related to 
the fruit of the Nipa, or Molucca-Palm, a tree which abounds 
in Bengal, and in the Molucca and Philippine Islands. The 
Nipze are low, shrub-like plants, having the general aspect 
of palms; they grow in marshy tracts, at the mouths of 
great rivers, particularly where the waters are brackish. 
They are allied to the Cocoa-nut tribe, on the one hand, and 
to the Pandanus, or Screw-pine, on the other. 
The Vipadites, according to Mr. Bowerbank, have the epi- 
carp and endocarp thin and membranous, and the sarcocarp 
thick and pulpy, and composed of cellular tissue, through 
which run numerous bundles of vessels. Nearly in the 
centre of the pericarp is situated a large seed which, when 
broken, is more or less hollow. This seed consists of regu- 
lar layers of cells, radiating from a spot situated near the 
middle, and apparently inclosing a central embryo. 
The same author remarks, that “if the habits of the plants 
to which the fossil fruits belonged were similar to those of 
the recent Vipa, it will account for their abundance in the 
London Clay in the Isle of Sheppey; which formation, from 
the great variety of stems and branches, mixed up with star- 
fishes, shells of mollusks, and bones of fishes, crustaceans, 
and reptiles of numerous marine and fresh-water genera, is 
strikingly characteristic of the delta of a river, which pro- 
bably flowed from near the Equator towards the spot where 
these interesting relics are deposited.” The fact that the 
