THE NEOZOIC AGES. 259 



in the American Eocene are more like those of the 

 European Miocene or the Modern American flora, a 

 fact to which we must revert immediately. 



In Europe, while some of the early Eocene plants 

 resemble those of Australia, when we ascend toward 

 the Miocene they are like those of America, though 

 some Australian forms still remain. In the leaf-beds 

 of the Isle of Mull, where beds of vegetable mould 

 and leaves were covered up with the erupted matter of 

 a volcano belonging to a great series of such eruptions 

 which produced the basaltic cliffs of Antrim and of 

 Staffa, and at Bovey, in Devonshire, where Eocene 

 plants have accumulated in many thick beds of lignite, 

 the prevailing species are sequoias or red-woods, vines, 

 figs, cinnamons, etc. In the sandstones at the base 

 of the Alps similar plants and also palms of American 

 types occur. In the Upper Miocene beds of (Eningen 

 in the Rhine vajley, nearly five hundred species of 

 plants have been found, and include such familiar 

 forms as the maples, plane-trees, cypress, elm, and 

 sweet-gum, more American, however, than European 

 in their aspect. It thus appears that the later Eocene 

 flora of Europe resembles that of America at pre- 

 sent, while the Middle Eocene flora of Europe has 

 many Australasian forms, and the Eocene flora of 

 America, as well as the modern, resembles the Miocene 

 of Europe. In other words, the changes of the flora 

 have been more rapid in Europe than in America and 

 probably slowest of all in Australia. The Eastern 

 Continent has thus taken the lead in rapidity of 



