THE PALMS OP THE ANCIENT WORLD. 183 



pose that they were transported from any great 

 distance before they found their final resting- 

 places. Stems, leaves, and fruits of palms have 

 been discovered in the tertiary strata by 

 M. Adolphe Brogniart. Silicified trunks and 

 fruits occur in many places on the conti- 

 nent, in Antigua,* and among mammalian 

 remains in Ava and the Himalaya mountains. 

 Stems of palms have also been found in the allu- 

 vial strata of the north of Europe, associated with 

 the remains of elephants ; their position, state, 

 and appearance rendering it highly improbable 

 that they have been drifted from any distance, 

 much less from the tropics ; and as these races 

 are now almost exclusively tropical, we may 

 consider it as a matter scarcely admitting of a 

 doubt, (taking these facts in connexion with 

 others before stated, and with numbers more of a 

 similar character which might be adduced,) that 

 our country once possessed a climate as warm as 

 Italy or the North of Africa. It might not, perhaps, 

 be necessary for the production of the phenomena 

 cited, that the mean heat of the climate should be 

 so high as that possessed by inter-ti-opical regions 

 (the true palm lands) now ; a somewhat lower 

 temperature, if tolerably equalized as regards 

 winter and summer, would probably suffice. 

 • Mantell's Medals of Creation, pi. v. fig. 1. 



