216 FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



brown colour, but becomes yellow when ripe. The pulp 

 is white and fleshy, adhering closely to the drupe, which 

 is like that of the apricot. It is in taste both resinous 

 and astringent, and is exposed for sale in the markets in 

 China and Japan. The kernel is white, rather firm, and 

 sweet, with a mixture of austerity or bitterness when raw, 

 but agreeable when roasted, and is thought by the 

 Japanese to promote digestion. 



Count Saporta considers that the primaeval type, or 

 original palaeozoic shoot of the entire group of Salisburias, 

 was the genus Psygmophyllum of Schimper, and he adds : 

 ' If this opinion shall be confirmed, the point of departure 

 of the Salisburias will fall to be placed in the palaeanthrac- 

 tic vegetation of the extreme north. An immense inter- 

 val or gap, comprising the Permian, the Trias, and the 

 Lower Jurassic formations, forbids that we should say 

 anything of the Ginkophyllum, the Trichopitys, the Chirop- 

 teris, and the Jeanpaulia, which represent in Europe, in 

 these different stages, the successive forms of this group of 

 primitive Salisburias. But we find it again on coming to 

 the Arctic Jurassic flora of Cape Boheman.' 



'Besides the mountain limestone underlying the coal 

 formations, we have mountains of chalk, from the littoral 

 cliffs of which England, it is said, got its name of Albion. 

 This is a much later formation than the mountain lime- 

 stone, and the organic remains preserved in the strata 

 show a decided advance upon pre-existing races of animals. 

 We find in it Zoophytes more like existing species than 

 were those of the mountain limestone and silurian rocks ; 

 star fishes and sea urchins resembling those of the present 

 day ; Annulosa like the common Serpula and land-worm; 

 Crustacea resembling the lobster tribe j insects like the 

 beetle and dragon-fly ; fishes belonging to the Ganoidia, 

 of which the sturgeon and the bony pike of the North 

 American lakes are representative in the present day ; 

 reptiles allied to the tortoise and to the crocodile, though 

 differing from these in external form ; and two or three 



