Ancient Vegetation of the Barth, oat 
all at once, during the tertiary period, with preponderating influ- 
ence. It then, as at the present day, held dominion over other 
classes of the vegetable kingdom, both in reference to the number 
and variety of the species, as well as the magnitude of the indi- 
viduals. ‘Thus the assemblage of vegetables which inhabited 
our climates during the deposition of the tertiary formation, which 
enveloped their ruins in its sedimentary layers, were intimately 
allied to the mass of our present vegetation, and more particularly 
to the flora of the temperate regions of Europe and America. 
The soil of these countries was covered then, as at present, with 
Pines, Firs, Culms, Poplars, Birches, Elms, Walnuts, Maples, and 
other trees almost identical with those which still flourish in our 
climates. 
And yet, not only do we not recognize any indications of those 
singular vegetables which characterized the primitive forests of 
the coal period, but we rarely encounter, there, even fragments 
of plants analogous to those which now vegetate between the 
tropicks. 
We do not, however, necessarily infer that the same vegetable 
forms have been perpetuated from this epoch, still very ancient, 
(since it preceded the existence of man,) to the present day. No: 
very sensible differences almost always distinguish these inhabit- 
ants of our globe, very recent, geologically, but exceedingly an- 
cient, chronologically, from our cotemporaneous vegetables to 
which they seem most nearly allied; and the existence in these 
same earths, in the north of France, of Palms, very different from 
those which still vegetate upon the borders of the Mediterranean, 
and of a small number of other plants which appertain to families 
now limited to the more torrid regions, seem to indicate that at 
this epoch central Europe enjoyed a temperature more elevated 
than at present ; which, besides, accords very well with what we 
may deduce from the presence, in the same formations, and the 
same countries, of Elephants, Rhinoceroses and Hippopotami, ani- 
mals which are now rarely found to range beyond the tropicks. 
What an astonishing contrast between the aspect of nature du- 
ring modern geological periods, and that which she offered when 
the primitive vegetation covered the surface of the globe! 
- Indeed, at the periods in question of the geological history of 
the world, the earth had already assumed, in great part, at least, 
the form which it presents at the present day; continents very 
