304 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 



" At the present day for example, the higher fauna of Australia 

 is more nearly akin to that which flourished in Europe far back 

 in Mesozoic time, than to the living fauna of any other region of 

 the globe. There seems also to be now sufficient evidence to 

 warrant the assertion that the progress of terrestrial vegetation 

 has at some geological periods, and in some regions been in 

 advance of that of the marine fauna. And among such examples 

 we mention that the " Cretaceous flora of Aix la Chapelle with 

 its numerous dicolytedons has a much more modern aspect than 

 the contemporaneous fauna." But while such clear thinking- 

 writers as Dr. Geikie allow all that is necessary in the restrictions 

 to be placed upon the phrase " community," or " general facies of 

 organic remains in common," there is good reason to fear that 

 many Geologists and Palifiontologists, in dealing with fragmentary 

 collections of plants from widely separate regions, still perpetuate 

 in their mode of reasoning ancient fallacies, some of which have 

 been referred to by Prof. Huxley in " Lay Sermons."* 



Examples of two of these fallacies are as follows : — - 



(1) "Animals and plants began their existence together not 

 long after the commencement of the deposition of the sedi- 

 mentary rocks ; and then succeeded one anotlier in such a manner 

 that totally distinct faunas and floras occupied the whole surface 

 of the earth, one after the othei', and during distinct epochs of 

 time." 



(2) " The population of the earth's surface was at first very 

 similar in all parts, and only fi'om the middle of the Tertiary 

 epoch onwards, began to show a distinct distribution in zones." 



(3) In the latest edition of Prestwich's " Geology," Prof. 

 Prestwich, in discvissing geological equivalence has made a great 

 advance in his treatment of the great problem of stratigraphical 

 geology. But while he insists that in distant areas, strata cannot 

 be correlated by identical species, and although acknowledging to 

 some extent the eflects of migration of forms of life from one 

 region to another, he still clings to the idea that rocks of distant 

 regions may be properly correlated by the aid of "the presence of 

 the same characteristie geyiera." But it must be borne in mind 

 that English geologists have not had this aspect of the question 

 pressed home so closely to them in a practical way ; for unlike 

 Austi'alian workers, they have not been hampered in their schemes 

 of local classification by references or dependence upon the widely 

 differing association with respect to the stratigraphy and palaeon- 

 tology of a fai' distant region. 



If English geologists had now to form afresh tlieir Systems and 

 subdivisions of Systems" upon the lines laid down by Professor 

 Prestwich, with strict dependence upon the evidence of the 

 association of Australasian stratigraphy and palaeontology, the 



* Geological Contomporaneitj', p. 228. 



