HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 671 
or Mammalian—we find the vegetable productions still more resembling those of 
the present. The genera of dicotyls, palms and grasses, were the same as now, 
though the species were different. The indications are that a warm climate pre- 
vailed far to the north, many of the plants of that age being palms, and among 
the dicotyls were many, such as the magnolias, that at the present time flourish 
only inthe warm latitudes. In Eocene times numerous species of palms flour- 
ished in Europe, while plants of the amentiferous orders, as the oak, beech, 
hazel, etc., were perhaps quite as abundant as at the present day. 
During the Miocene period more than thirty species of palms flourished in 
Europe, while the country was covered, even as far north as Iceland, Lapland 
and Spitzbergen with evergreens such as now flourish only in the more southern 
parts of that continent. Much of the flora of Europe at that time closely resem- 
bled the present flora of the United States, as in the plane and buckthorn 
families. Many of the vegetable productions of America at that time were much 
the same as now, as the Sequoias or Big Trees and Redwood of California. The 
mildness of the climate of the higher latitudes was also evidenced by the fact that 
magnolias, libocedrus and taxodiums that now flourish only in the warmer cli- 
mates, grew luxuriously in Greenland, also in Northern Europe. We now ap- 
proach the age of Man—the Quaternary or present age—in which the changes 
in the vegetable kingdom were more in the introduction of new species of already 
existing genera, than of new genera. 
I have now traced the history of the Vegetable Kingdom from the earliest 
dawn of its existence of which we have the slightest clew down to the present 
fully developed and highly differentiated flora of the world We have found that 
reasons exist for believing that vegetation existed at a much earlier date in the 
world’s history than is shown by any vegetable fossils, the evidences of such 
existence being found, not in direct vegetable remains, but in certain facts that 
cannot be accounted for in the present state of knowledge on any other hypothe- 
sis. It has been seen that there has been a general upward tendency—a devel- 
opment of plan marking the whole progress of this history. First appeared 
plants of the most simple character, consisting of simple stems. ‘These, of 
course, were all marine. Next, the lower cryptogamic plants appeared, followed 
in order by lower forms of conifers, finally culminating in the highly developed 
dicotyledonous flora of the present time. I have given some reasons for not 
accepting the theory that this constant ascension to higher and more complex 
organisms was the result of ‘‘ Descent with Modification ;” not that I have any 
objection to evolution in itself; I simply doubt the adequacy or legitimacy of the 
proofs by which it is sought to be established. The rule of development that has 
governed in the introduction of higher forms has been by sudden jumps from 
lower to higher forms, and not by gradual modifieation. In most cases of marked 
advance, all intermediate forms, if they ever existed, appear to have utterly 
perished, leaving no trace behind. To assume that they have existed and per- 
ished is to beg the whole question, and it is disconsonant with the rigid and exact 
methods that are and should be demanded in all scientific investigation. 
