Ill] THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD 49 



workmanship. As Sir Edwin Ray Lankester said in 

 1905, 'It is not improbable that it was in the remote 

 period known as the Lower Miocene — remote as com- 

 pared with the gravels in which Eoliths [primitive 

 stone implements] occur — that Natural Selection 

 began to favour that increase in the size of the brain 

 of a large and not very powerful semi-erect ape '(28). 



Though comparatively recent in terms of geological 

 chronology, the remoteness, according to ordinary 

 conceptions of time, of the Tertiary period is brought 

 home to us when we endeavour to grasp the fact 

 that it was during this chapter in the earth's history 

 that some of our highest mountaiji-ranges, such as 

 the Alps, the Carpathians, and Himalayas were formed 

 by the uplifting of piles of marine sediments. From 

 Tertiary strata in the Isle of Wight, on the Hamp- 

 shire coast, and in the London basin numerous fossil 

 plants have been obtained, which afford convincing 

 evidence of climatic conditions much more genial 

 than those of the present day. The presence of palm 

 leaves and of a wealth of other sub-tropical plants 

 in Lower Tertiary beds in England reveals the 

 existence of a flora differing considerably both from 

 that in the uppermost Tertiary beds of Norfolk and 

 from the modern British flora, but closely allied to 

 the present Mediterranean flora. 



The basaltic columns of the Giants' Causeway and 

 of the Staffa Cave, and the terraced rocks which form 



s. 4 



