330 PROCEEDINGS OP SOCIETIES. 



turally draw would be a correct one — namely, that in the environs 

 of Liverpool once grew the fruits which her ships now bring from 

 the tropics, although he may be unable to account for the circum- 

 stance. Thus our proposition is illustrated. There is, perhaps, 

 nowhere existing upon the earth fruit of precisely similar species to 

 those under review, and until within a very recent ])eriod they had 

 never been seen in a fossil state : but Professor Lindley pronounces 

 them at once to be the fruits of some species of Palm analogous to 

 the Date. The species is probably extinct^ but with such confi- 

 dence is their family alliance recognised, that they become the basis 

 of very important conclusions. 



One of the proofs of the high temperature of the earth at the 

 period of the formation of coal, was su))posed to be the occurrence of 

 this tropical plant among the vegetable relics which accompany it 

 in such profusion : but this appears to have rested merely upon the 

 assumption that two or three doubtful species of leaves belonged to 

 the tribe of Palms. Indeed Brongniart entertained the opinion that 

 no decided trace of the palm-tree had been discovered in this forma- 

 tion. Abundance of specimens of this class of vegetation, be it ob- 

 served, are found in the strata of later pei'icds. They pervade, in- 

 deed, all the rocks in greater or less number, from the ancient carbo- 

 niferous series to the latest tertiary deposits. Like the Pelasgi in 

 human history, you find them at the early periods exisfing every- 

 where but springing from nowhere. The discovery of these most 

 interesting specimens will, it is supposed, clear awaj^ the obscurity 

 in which their origin was involved, and this circumstance whilst it 

 adds to their interest and value, illustrates in a curious manner the 

 progress of science which had anticipated nature and stole a march 

 upon discovery. It was so with another very remarkable order of 

 fossil relics belonging to this period — the tree ferns, whose existence 

 had been suspected and predicted long before it was established. 

 When LindJey and Hutton published the first volume of their 

 " Fossil Flora," " there had not been described a single genuine 

 tree-fern-stem from the coal of any part of the world ; " now the 

 existence of three English species has been demonstrated. 



Singular as it may appear, the analogy between the grouping of 

 the existing vegetation of the earth and the dispersion of tliese inert 

 organic ferns beneath its surface — between the geographical and 

 geological distribution of plants is so obvious and striking that these 

 conclusions, established by subsequent discoveries, were strictly 

 within the limits and in accordance with the spirit of inductive 

 science. 



But to those unaccustomed to the reception of this species of evi- 

 dence, the inference deduced from these fossil fruits will appear to 

 be unsatisfactorily established, and the palm-groves of our hyperbo- 

 rean regions will not spring up without a considerable effort of the 

 imagination. This tribe of plants, the palmares of botanists, none 

 of which range more than thirty or forty degrees on each side of the 

 equator (thirty-eight degrees in the southern and forty-three de- 



