OF LOWER GREENS AN I) PLANTS. 67 



examined is far from being so exiensivo as one could wish, but 

 in the course of this work (as the present volume will indicate) 

 I have examined much more material than has hitherto been 

 known from the Lower Greenland of England, and have had a 

 large number of microscopic sections cut from the petrified 

 woods. While it is not impossible that some even of the woods 

 which have passed through my hands and have not been sec- 

 tioned mat/ be Araucarian, I am inclined to think that this is 

 not the case, for I have examined the tracheid-dust of Iho 

 badly preserved specimens (see Stopes, 1911, p. 50), and have 

 had all the promising pieces cut. The blocks left uncut, though 

 well preserved, were those which seemed externally identical 

 with forms which had become familiar to me during the work. 

 It remains, however, a fact that, among all my specimens, 

 neither wood, foliage, scales nor seeds* show any Araucarian 

 feature which could, even by stretching a point, cause one to 

 look on them as evidence of the presence of Araucarincae in the 

 Lower Greensand of this country. 



In tins connection it is noteworthy that in his account of 

 Arctic gymnospermic woods of Jurassic age, Gothan (1D10A) 

 came to the snme conclusion regarding them. Ho says 

 (p. 46): "Die Jahrcsringesindausnahmslosscharf und deutlich 

 abgesetzt, so dass damals dort oben cine ziemlich fiihlbare 

 Period izi tat des Kliinas geherrscht haben muss. Die Priidomi- 

 nanz der Abietineen, die zu den Verhiiltnissen einer gleichalt- 

 rigen Flora unserer Breiten einen scharfen Gcgensatz bildet, ist 

 in dem Spitzbergener Material vielleicht noch deutlicher ausge- 

 sprochen als in dem (aus ungeflihr gleichen Breiten stammenden) 

 von Konig-Karls-Land. Ferner hat sich auch nicht ein einziger 

 Rest eines Araucarieenholzes gefunden." 



The absence of Araucarian remains in our English Aptian 

 deposits is in all probability not merely an isolated and curious 

 fact, but is probably to be correlated with the lack of the same 

 family in the polar regions. It is possible that it may be, 

 as Gothan supposes in his case, an indication that in the Aptian 

 of S. England there was a cooling of the climate, which was 



* Kaidocdi-pnrn niinii$, Carrutlicr.s (1808), is not forgotten, but, though it 

 is put in Araucarites by Seward, its age is doubtful, ami it is most, likely 

 a, derived Wealdeu plant, as are so many of the fossils of the 1'otton Sands 

 in which it was found. 



F2 



