the two first occur with an Araucarites in the upper 

 lias of Wurtemburg, with numerous marine animals 

 and alga3. The physiognomy of plant-life was then 

 uniform ; no difference seems to have existed from 

 Spitzbergen to Hindoostan, from southern Europe to 

 Siberia. In a comparison of the upper oolite flora 

 with the lower oolite there appear to be several 

 links of affinity, and at the same time wide 

 differences. During the deposition of the purbeck 

 beds, Europe became more decidedly continental 

 by the amalgamation of its lands and the formation of 

 considerable lakes and estuaries. The oolitic seas in 

 Western Europe formed three principal basins, one 

 covering the north-west of France and the eastern part 

 of England, marked by a line running north-east from 

 Somersetshire to Durham; another from Eochelle to 

 what is now occupied by the Pyrenean range from 

 Bigorre to Perpignan ; and the third extending from 

 Dauphine and Provence to the present site of the Alps 

 (which, as well as the Pyrenees, did not rise until a 

 much later period), also Piedmont and Italy. The 

 shores of these seas gradually retired, forming a series 

 of consecutive diminishing circles. At Solenhofen in 

 Bavaria, at Stonesfield in Oxfordshire, and in the pur- 

 beck-bedsof Dorsetshire and Wiltshire,which stand near 

 the boundary line between the oolitic and cretaceous 

 periods, are large assemblages of insects, cockroaches, 

 beetles, grasshoppers, white-ants, and dragon-flies. 

 Solenhofen has produced a fossil bird, Archceopterix 

 macrura (Owen,) retaining its feathers so perfectly that 



