50 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. in. 



phical relation between Europe, Asia, and America in 

 the Meiocene age than at the present time. 



The number of European species is estimated by Pro- 

 fessor Heer at about 3000, of which 920 have been 

 collected in Switzerland. The cycads, so abundant in the 

 Secondary period, are represented by two species, while 

 of the cypresses one (Glyptostrobus) is to be met with 

 in Eastern Asia ; another (Taxodium distichum), found 

 in the fossil state in Spitzbergen, Alaska, and Italy, is 

 that which gives its name to the cypress swamps of the 

 Southern States and of South America. The Libocedrus 

 is now only to be found in California, Chili, and 

 Australia, and the Widdringtonia in South Africa and 

 Madagascar, all being exotic and tropical or sub-tropical. 

 The mammoth tree and red wood tree of California 

 lived in the Meiocene forests from the Mediterranean 

 to the Arctic circle. In Switzerland a Puya, like that 

 of Chili, represents the exotic pine-apple family, and 

 a large-leaved ginger contributed greatly to the tropical 

 character of the foliage. 



The Meiocene palms were represented in the Swiss 

 forests by at least eleven species, which may be grouped 

 into fan-palms (see Fig. 8), with the leaflets all diverg- 

 ing from the tip of the leaf-stalks, and the feather-palms, 

 in which they spring right and left from the foot-stalk. 

 To the former belong the dwarf fan -palm, the Sdbal 

 major, which then lived in central Italy and northern Ger- 

 many as far as 51 N., bearing a strong resemblance to 

 the shadow-palm of the West Indies. A second agrees 

 with the swamp palmetto of the Southern States in its 

 small leaves, while the leaves of a third are estimated 

 by Professor Heer to have been no less than six or 

 seven feet broad ; they sprang from a lofty trunk, and 



