16 



in the coal measures, but it is especially in the oolite and 

 other mesozoic strata that it culminates, and then it dwindles 

 away until the present epoch, when it still nourishes in about 

 fifty species, distributed under seven genera. Such is the 

 life history of a synthetic type, and it is no wonder that 

 evolutionists say very little about it. 



10. Conclusion. No fossil botanist had a profounder know- 

 ledge of the vast Tertiary flora than Dr. Heer of Zurich. On 

 such a subject as this I cannot close ray paper better than 

 with his striking remarks at the end of his fascinating book 

 On the Primeval World of Switzerland : 



" The deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of nature 

 the more thorough becomes our conviction that only the 

 belief in an Almighty and all-wise Creator who has made 

 Heaven and Earth after an eternally predetermined plan 

 can solve the riddle of nature as well as those of human 

 life." 



NOTE. The author must state his obligations throughout 

 the paper to Mr. Carruthers's Presidential Address to the 

 Geologists' Association, as reported in the Geological Magazine, 

 1876, p. 560. 



Count Saporta's attempt to weaken the argument from the 

 carboniferous flora is hardly successful; indeed, his chapter 

 on Evolution in his interesting book on Fossil Plants is too 

 obviously a rechauffe of an article in the Revue des Deux 

 Mondes, and hardly does justice to the scientific eminence of 

 that patient investigator of the Aix Cretaceous Flora. 



