NEW HOLLAND IN EUROPE. 41 
bowels of the earth are as yet incomplete, they have at all events 
allowed us to form some general views, and shown that the organic 
world of bygone geological periods was not a mere chaos of forms, 
but a development of life proceeding on a regular plan, of which the 
present creation constitutes the most perfect part. Amongst this series 
of existing and extinct vegetable forms is one to which I desire to 
draw special attention. It belongs to a comparatively early geolo- 
gical period, but to one which is apparently completely separated 
from former ones. It is the first in which organic forms came into ex- 
istence, which could hardly be expected from those that preceded them, 
but which, for that very reason, became the foundation of an entirely 
new series of organisms. This has been termed the Eocene period, to 
indicate the dawn of the present order of things. I was much surprised 
when years ago I first began to study a collection of Eocene fossils. 
Accustomed to meet in the plants of the more recent periods, the only 
ones then examined, analogous European or closely related North Ame- 
rican forms, I found here types peculiar to the southern hemisphere ; 
and in my first attempts at determining them, hardly ventured to de- 
clare them related to those of New Holland and the adjacent islands. 
But subsequent labours have constantly adtled to ourlist of these plants, 
and the finding of characteristic specimens has enabled us to render 
their determination more and more certain, A considerable number of 
them from different European localities are now accessible, and must 
be compared with the living Australian plants, with which they are so 
closely related. 
Who does not know that New Holland and the neighbouring islands 
are characterized by a vegetation not met with in other parts of the 
earth? Several Natural Orders and genera of plants are there found 
in such overwhelming majority that the vegetation derives from them 
its distinguishing character. There are, amongst others, certain Myr- 
taceous plants — Eucalypti, or gum-trees — diffused over New Holland 
* This view I first advanced publicly at Gratz in 1849, and afterwards in 
my 'Fossile Flora von Sotzka' (1850) in Deiikschrift. d. Kais. Acad. d. Wis- 
Benschaften, Math. ]^aturw. Classe II., where I stated at p. 14, " The general 
character was tropical ; the particular corresponded in surprising degree with 
that of the present Polynesian and Xew Holland flora, and required a mean 
annual temperature of 18° to 22° Eeaum. The proof that the recent lienite 
flora had the characters of that of tlie southern parts of North America, I fur- 
nished m 1848, on publishing in the ' Stcyermark'sche Zeitsehrift/ new series, 
ix., a synopsis of the * Fossil Fl(5ra of Parschlug.' 
