Plants of the Anthracite Formation of Savoy. 125 



consider that the animal and vegetable life existing at each geological 

 period had been so entirely swept away, and replaced by new species 

 at a)iother, that no species of one geological period would have its 

 existence prolonged into another. The view of M. Elie de Beaumont 

 was in consequence considered to require confirmation, and thus the 

 subject remained, as Mr Bunbury has pointed out, until the meeting 

 of the Geological Society of France, at Chambery, in 184-i, when 

 the observations of the members present led them to adopt the opin- 

 ions of M. Elie de Beaumont. 



When at Turin in 1848, Mr Bunbury carefully examined the fos- 

 sil plants from the Tarentaise in the Museum. In this examination 

 he experienced difficulties fi'om the impei'fect preservation of the 

 plants, their confused mixture and distortion, and from the injury to 

 the structure caused by their replacement by a coating of talc. The 

 specimens in the Turin Museum afforded Mr Bunbury fourteen dif- 

 ferent forms (for he will not venture to call them species), of which 

 nine are Ferns, two Calamites, and three Asterophyllites, or Annula- 

 riae. " Two of these ferns," he observes, " Odontopteris Brardii 

 and Pecopteris cyathea, may be pronounced, with tolei-able certainty, 

 to be identical with characteristic and well-known plants of the coal- 

 measures. Three, or perhaps four, others have a strong resemblance 

 to coal-measure plants, with which they may probably be specifically 

 identical; but," he continues, " I cannot feel certain of them. An- 

 other seems to be a remarkable and hitherto unnoticed variety of 

 Odontopteris Brardii, connecting that species with 0. obtusa of 

 Brongniart. The eighth is perhaps a new species, but its nearest 

 allies are plants of the coal-formation. Of the ninth, the specimens 

 are too imperfect to admit of determination. Of the remaining plants, 

 Calamites approximatus and Annularia longifolia appear lo be ab- 

 solutely identical with coal-measure plants ; and the other two, An- 

 nularice or Asterophyllites, are at least very similar to carboniferous 

 forms. The other Calamite is undeterminable." 



The occurrence of similar plants at the Col de Balme, and in the 

 mountains above Servoz and Martigny, is then noticed, as also the 

 absence of belemnites in beds interstratified with the others in those 

 localities. The plants obtained by Mr Bunbury from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Chamonix, and those seen by him in the Museum at 

 Geneva, consisted of eight Ferns, one Calamite (species undetermi- 

 nable) and one Asteruphyllite. A well-preserved specimen oi' Lepi- 

 dodeiidron ornatissimuin, of Brongniart, was pointed out to him by 

 M. Elie de Beaumont in the collection at the Ecole des Mines at 

 Paris, brought from beds at the Col de Chardonet, near Brianoon, 

 eferred " to the uppermost part of the Alpine anthracite formation, 

 and probably equivalent to the Oxford clay." It thus appears that 

 the researches of Mr Bunbury lead him to conclude, with M. Adolphe 

 Brongniart, that the plants from the beds noticed presiMit a general 

 agreement with those found in the coal-measures. 



It will be fresh in your recullection, iliat the mi.xtuie or nither al- 



