206 TERTIARY TIMES. 



characterised by the general absence of vertebrata ; in the 

 Old Ked Sandstone we had no reptiles, nor birds, nor mam- 

 mals; in the Coal no birds nor mammals; and in the 

 secondary ages nothing apparently higher than marsupials. 

 But now, and for the first time in the history of the earth, 

 we are presented with all the great orders of plants and 

 animals, and were it not for certain forms that have become 

 extinct and others that are peculiar to the current epoch, 

 we could almost fancy we were dealing with the botany and 

 zoology of the present day. So far as they have been criti- 

 cally examined, the plants of the lower European tertiaries 

 indicate a much warmer climate than now prevails over the 

 same latitudes ; and this higher temperature was in all like- 

 lihood brought about by the peculiar disposition of the sea 

 and land. Broad rivers flowing from tropical latitudes, and 

 inland seas extending longitudinally into sub-tropical or 

 even tropical zones, would be sufficient to account for the 

 presence of palms and other allied vegetation in the lignites 

 of Europe ; and what we already know of the boundaries 

 of the lower tertiaries, affords the best reason for believing 

 that such were the great geographical arrangements of the 

 period. In our reasonings on former climates we are too 

 apt to look to mere zones of latitude, without sufficiently 

 allowing for disposition and altitude of land, the trend of 

 oceanic currents, the prevailing set of winds, the effects of 

 atmospheric humidity, and other similar incidents by which 

 the luxuriance or sterility of life is often more immediately 

 affected than by mere propinquity to the equator. During 

 the deposition of the middle and upper tertiaries the climate 

 seems to have gradually declined, and the European lignites 

 of these periods exhibit a flora bearing a striking resem- 

 blance to that which now flourishes in North America. 

 "We say " European lignites," for the lignites of Eastern 

 Asia, of New Zealand, and of British America seem each to 



