I 



July 2 1, 1S87] 



NATURE 



275 



Some fruits and other fragments from the Belly River 

 series appear to indicate the presence of a species of 

 Podocarpus. Appended to the descriptions of the woods 

 are notices of new species and localities in connexion 

 with the Laramie flora, and remarks on the grand coni- 

 ferous fruits of the period, as connected with the formation 

 of coal and lignite. The concluding remarks are given 

 in full, as of interest in connexion with the British 

 Eocene flora : — 



Concluding Remarks. — While studying the specimens 

 described in this paper, I received the volume of the 

 Pala^ontographical Society for 18S5, containing the conclu- 

 sion of Mr. Starkie Gardner's description of the Eocene 

 ConifercC of England. The work which he has been able 

 to do in disentangling the nomenclature of these plants, 

 and fixing their geological age, is of the greatest value, 

 and shows how liable the pateobotanist is to fall into 

 error in determining species from imperfect specimens. 

 Our American species no doubt require some revision in 

 this respect. 



I have also, while writing out the above notes for publi- 

 cation, received the paper of the same author on the 

 Eocene beds of Ardtun in Mull, and am fully confirmed 

 thereby in the opinion derived from the papers of the 

 Duke of Argyll and the late Prof E. Forbes (Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. of London, vol. vii.), that the Mull beds very closely 

 correspond in age with our Laramie. The Filiates 

 hebrtdica of Forbes is our Onoclea sensibilis. The 

 species of Gingko, Taxiis, Sequoia, and Glyptostrobus 

 correspond, and we have now probably found a Podo- 

 carpus as noted above. The Platanites hebridicus is 

 very near to our great Platanus nobilis. Corylus 

 Macquarii is common to both formations, as well as 

 Populus arctica and P. Richanlsoni, while many of the 

 other exogens are generically the same, and very closely 

 allied. These Ardtun beds are regarded by Mr. Gardner 

 as Lower Eocene, or a little older than the Gelinden series 

 of Saporta, and nearly of the same age with the so-called 

 Miocene of Atanekerdluk in Greenland. I have ever 

 since 1875 maintained the Lower Eocene age of our 

 Laramie, and of the Fort Union group of the North- 

 Western United States, and the identity of their flora 

 with that of Mackenzie River and Greenland, and it is 

 very satisfactory to find that Mr. Gardner has independ- 

 ently arrived at similar conclusions with respect to the 

 Eocene of Great Britain. 



An important consequence arising from this is that the 

 period of warm climate which enabled a temperate flora 

 to exist in Greenland was that of the later Cretaceous and 

 early Eocene, rather than, as usually stated, the Miocene. 

 It is also a question admitting of discussion, whether the 

 Eocene flora of latitudes so different as those of Greenland, 

 Mackenzie River, North West Canada, and the Western 

 States, were strictly contemporaneous, or successive within 

 a long geological period in which climatal changes were 

 gradually proceeding. The latter statement must apply at 

 least to the beginning and close of the period ; but the plants 

 themselves have something to say in favour of contem- 

 poraneity. The flora of the Laramie is not a tropical but 

 a temperate flora, showing no doubt that a much more 

 equable climate prevailed in the more northern parts of 

 America than at present. But this equability of climate 

 implies the possibility of a great geographical range on 

 the part of plants. Thus it is quite possible, and indeed 

 highly probable, that in the Laramie age a somewhat uni- 

 form flora extended from the Arctic seas through the 

 ^reat central plateau of America far to the south, and in 

 like manner along the western coast of Europe. It is also 

 to be observed that, as Gardner points out, there are some 

 differences indicating a diversity of climate between 

 Greenland and England, -and even between Scotland and 

 Ireland and the south of England ; and we have similar 

 difterences, though not strongly marked, between the 

 Laramie of Northern Canada and that of the United 



States. When all our beds of this age, from the Arctic 

 Sea to the 49th parallel, have been ransacked for plants, 

 and when the palaeobotanists of the United States 

 shall have succeeded in unravelling the confusion which 

 now exists between their Laramie and the Middle Tertiary, 

 the geologist of the future will be able to restore with 

 much certainty the distribution of the vast forests which 

 in the early Eocene covered the now bare plains of interior 

 America. Further, since the break which in Western 

 Europe separates the flora of the Cretaceous from that of 

 the Eocene does not exist in America, it will then be 

 possible to trace the succession of plants all the way from 

 the Mesozoic Flora of the Queen Charlotte Islands and 

 the Kootanie series, described in previous papers in these 

 Transactions, up to the close of the Eocene ; and to deter- 

 mine, for America at least, the manner and conditions 

 under which the angiospermous flora of the later 

 Cretaceous succeeded to the pines and cycads which 

 characterized the beginning of the Cretaceous period. 



THE LIVERPOOL MARINE BIO LOG V ST A TION 

 ON PUFFIN I SLA ND. 



'IPHE Liverpool Marine Biology Committee was formed 

 -*- in the spring of 1885 for the purpose of working up 

 thoroughly the fauna and flora of that large rectangular 

 area of the Irish Sea which lies around Liverpool Bay, and 

 is bounded by the Isle of Man and the coasts of Anglesey, 

 North Wales, Cheshire, and Lancashire. During the last 

 three seasons the members of the Committee have con- 

 ducted a large number of dredging, tow-netting, and other 

 investigating expeditions in various parts of the Liverpool 

 Marine Biology Committee district, and, as a first result 

 of their labours, they published, in the summer of 1886, 

 a " First Report upon the Fauna of Liverpool Bay and 

 the Neighbouring Seas." It became evident at an early 

 stage in these investigations that, as the sand-banks and 

 channels in the immediate neighbourhood of the estuary 

 of the Mersey are comparatively barren, it would be 



Biological 

 Station. 



Tuv 



Fig. r. — Puffin Island from the north. 



necessary, in order to carry on the work of the Commit- 

 tee satisfactorily, to establish a small marine laboratory 

 somewhere on the coast of North Wales or Anglesey. 

 Such a station, close to the region where there is a rich 

 and varied fauna, and yet within easy reach of Liverpool, 

 would enable the members of the Committee, and other 

 biologists who were working with them, to pay frequent 

 and regular visits to the best ground for the purpose of 

 collecting specimens ; and also to carry on observations 

 on the habits of the animals, and to investigate their 

 structures and life-histories. The Liverpool Marine 

 Biology Committee have been aided in their work by 

 small grants this year and last year from the Go\drnment 

 Grant Committee of the Royal Society, and have received 

 most important and generous assistance, by the loan of 

 steamers for the dredging expeditions and in other ways, 

 from some of the Liverpool ship-owners — amongst others, 

 from the present Mayor, Sir James Poole, from Mr, 



