NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD. 



85 



Museum, it was invested with a haul calcareous incrus- 

 tation; so that a rude imperfect outline was only visible. 

 This crust was carefully and skilfully removed by Dr. 

 Mantell, whose labours developed the skeleton of an 

 extinct fox-like animal ; differing from the existing 

 fox in the greater robustness of its limbs, and the 

 elongation of its feet. Its habits and general charac- 

 teristics, however, wonld seem to have been identical. 



The seas at this period were inhabited by numerous 

 marine Mammalia, such as whales, dolphins, seals, 

 walruses, and the lamantins, manati, or sea-cows, whose 

 existing species are chiefly found near the coasts and 

 estuaries of the torrid zone. The presence of the 

 lamantin may be accepted as an additional argument 

 to that suggested by the tropical character of many 

 other animals, even of the latest Tertiary strata, in 

 favour of the opinion, that the climate of Europe main- 

 tained a high, though probably a gradually decreasing 

 temperature, eyen to the latest period of the Tertiary 

 formations. 



The accompanying illustration (Plate 8) presents 

 us with an {deal landscape of the Miocene period ; but 

 before we can fully realize it in ail its details, we must 

 glance at the conditions of vegetable life which then 

 prevailed. 



The lover of Shelley will remember, in "Alastor," the 

 poet's fine description of a tropical forest : 



" One vast mass 



Of mingling sliade, whose brawn magnificence 

 A narrow vale embosoms. 



" More dark 



And dark the shades accumulate; the oak, 

 Expanding its immense and knotty arms, 

 Embraces the light beech,. The pyramid^ 

 Of the tall cedar, overarching, frame 

 Most solemn domes within ; and far belovy, 

 Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, 

 The ash and the acacia floating hang, 

 Tremulous and pale, like restless serpents, clothed 

 In rainbow and in fire. The parasites, 

 Starr'd with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 

 The grey trunks; and, as gamesome infants' eyes, 

 With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles, 

 Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, 

 These twine their tendrils with the wedded houghs 

 Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves 

 Make network of the dark blue light of day, 

 And the night's noontide clearnesSj mutable 

 AS shapes in the weir(l clouds." 



Allowing for the different types of vegetation, we can 

 recognize that the scene painted so eloquently by the poet 

 was everywhere visible in the luxuriant woodlands of 

 the Miocene world. The vegetation which then prevailed 

 was such as one might expect to. meet in a poet's dream 

 of Arcadian fairyland, a mixture of the plants which 

 nowadays flourish only under "hot Afric's sky," such as 

 palms, and bamboos, and Terminalia, the grand, Legu- 

 minosse of warm climates (as Phaseolites, Evythrina, 

 Bauhinia, Mimosites, Acacia), Apocynese analogous to 

 the genera of our tropical regions, and a Rubiacea 

 altogether tropical, with the genera now confined to 

 temperate and even inclement regions, as maples, wal- 

 nut trees, beeches, elms, oaks, and wych elms. 



During the Miocene period also flourished mosses and 

 mushrooms, evergreens, charas, fig trees, planes, and 

 poplars. 



At this epoch of the world's history the algae and 

 marine monocotyledons were less abundant than in a 

 preceding age ; the ferns and the conifers declined in 

 numbers, and the palms multiplied in species. Some of 

 those cited before seem still to belong to this period; and 

 the magnificent Flabellaria, with the noble fhoenicites, 

 which now appears for the first time, gave animation to 

 the landscape. Among the conifers, we recognize some 

 new genera ; especially fodocarpens, a southern form 

 of vegetation of the present age. Almost all the arbo- 

 rescent families have their representatives in the Mio- 

 cene forests, where for the first time the widely different 

 types are united. The waters are covered with aquatic 

 plants, Nymphcea Arithnaoe, and Myriophyllites capilli- 

 folius; Culmites of various species profusely adorn their 

 banks ; and the great Bambusinites sepultana flings 

 across the rippling wave the slender shadow of its long 

 articulated stem. Some analogous species occupy the 

 margin of the great rivers of the New World. 



Arborescent vegetation seems at this epoch to have 

 attained its highest development. Numerous Smilacites 

 interlaced, like the wild vines, the trunks of the grand 

 forest trees, which fell on the ground, decayed and 

 rotten, where they had previously thriven and waxed 

 strong. T^ese rich scenes of abundant vegetable 

 growth, of parasites and epiphytous plants and creep- 

 ers, are familiar to travellers in tropical regions, where 

 nature often wears her gayest livery under a curtain of 

 clouds which the sun is unable to penetrate. 



" I have reached a zone," says D'Orbigny, speaking 

 of Rio Chapura, in South America, " where it rains 

 regularly all the year round. We can scarcely perceive 

 the rays of the sup at intervals through the cloudy screen 

 which almost constantly veils it. This circumstance, 

 added to the heat, gives an extraordinary development 

 to. the vegetation. The wild vines droop on all sides in 

 wreaths and festoons from the topmost branches of 

 trees whose summits a.re lost in the clouds." 



Thus then, we find tropical plants associated with 

 the vegetables of temperate climates, though they are 

 not yet the same as existing species. Oaks grow side 

 by side with palms, the birch in strange companionship 

 with the bamboo, the laurel vies with the stately elm, 

 and the maples mingle with the Combretace?e, the Legu- 

 minosse, and the tropical Rubiaceae. The forms of the 

 species belonging to temperate regions are, however, 

 rather American in character than European. 



Professor Heer, a German botanist, lias identified 

 three thousand species as belonging to the Miocene 

 period. Among these European plants occupy a 

 secondary rank, while an important position is held by 

 the evergreen oaks, maples, poplars, and plane trees, 

 Robinias and Taxodiums of America. 



The reader will now appreciate our ideal landscape 

 of the Miocene period, which in luxuriance resembles a 

 tropical, and in character a temperate region. In many 

 respects the vegetation reminds us of that of the Car- 

 boniferous period. It is, in truth, a continuation of the 

 characteristics of that period, and from the same cause, 

 namely, the submersion of land under marshy waters, 

 which has originated a sort of coal, often found in the 

 Miocene formation, and known as lignite. This imper- 

 fect coal differs from that of the Carboniferous, or true 



