Antediluvian Zoology and Botany. 207 
Accumulations of trees, called ‘* subterranean forests,” may 
be traced at intervals, along our eastern coasts. Some of 
them, apparently, are the remains of forests which clothed the 
surface of our soil prior to the last great geological epoch. 
Most of the trees of this class, although broken off, over- 
whelmed by tremendous violence, and often flattened by the 
pressure of diluvial and alluvial deposits, appear to occupy 
their original sites; their stumps still remain rooted in the 
soil on which they evidently once flourished. These lignites 
have been much confounded with others of obvious postdilu- 
vian lacustrine origin. 
Mosses, conferve, and other equally delicate vegetable sub- 
stances, preserved in agate and chalcedony, have been ex- 
amined by Dr. Mac Culloch: who is inclined to refer their 
origin to a period nearly coeval with the earliest existence 
of organic matter. 
Naturalists have often failed in their endeavours to iden- 
tify the antediluvian plants with those now existing. They evi- 
dently flourished under a warm climate ; but botanists hesitate 
to pronounce upon the species, or even the genera. In one 
instance, lately, a fossil plant has been determined with unusual 
precision. Under the name 7richémanes rotundatus, Mr. 
Lindley has described a vegetable discovered within a nodule 
of argillaceous ironstone, which plant he does not hesitate to 
identify closely with one which is now only known recent in 
the deep forests of New Zealand. 
Those who take an interest in comparative botany expect, 
with much satisfaction, The Fossil Flora of Great Britain, by 
Mr. Lindley and Dr. Hutton. 
ZOOPHYTES, 
which form the link between vegetables and shellfish, are 
little less obscure than the plants; and we are again struck 
with the want of agreement between the organic productions 
of the ancient and of the present world. As far as the inves- 
tigation has been pursued, it would seem that the zoophytes 
of those remote and mysterious times were not less numerous 
and beautiful than those of our own days. 
Mr. Parkinson examined 176 fossil corals, and found nearly 
the whole differed from any that are now known. ‘ In my 
attempt,” says this able observer, “ to preserve a parallel 
between the recent and the fossil species, I have been most 
completely foiled. Indeed, so little could this parallel be 
preserved, that I am under the necessity of acknowledging I 
am not certain of the existence of the recent analogue of any 
one mineralised coral.” 
TZ 
