234 



the Tertiary period, however, a matter of a couple of million 

 years or so, we find the cypress occupying a position to which 

 its picturesque beauty entitles it, for its remains are found from 

 Siberia and Spitzbergen across the arctic regions to Ellesmere 

 Land, Greenland, and Alaska and southward over a large part of 

 Asia, Europe, and America. Both Europe and Asia could claim 

 it as a native plant up to the time the great glaciers came down 

 from the north and forced it into the Mediterranean sea or 

 against the fatal ice sheets that centered in the southern high- 

 lands of the Himalayas, Balkans, Alps, etc. 



We in America have an almost unequalled series of early Ter- 

 tiary deposits, but coming down to the latter half of that period 

 we find our record much broken and scattered so that the botan- 

 ist who would collect Miocene plants in any great variety must 

 journey to Europe where there are innumerable localities of wide 

 renown and great excellence. 



Here in eastern North America our Miocene deposits are all 

 marine and while they yield several hundred species of fossil 

 shells often of exceeding great beauty, particularly in the Cato- 

 linas, they have only furnished thus far the scant remains of six 

 species of fossil plants * preserved in a chance deposit in the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia. 



Great interest therefore attaches to the recent discovery of indi- 

 cations of a cypress swamp along the ancient coastal estuaries of 

 Virginia at a time when the diatomaceous deposits which now 

 constitute the Calvert formation were being laid down off shore. 

 During a recent visit to Richmond a considerable collection of 

 fossil plants was made from these diatomaceous beds and a fair 

 picture was obtained of some of the inhabitants of this far off 

 cypress swamp. 



First of all, the cypress twigs are preserved in greatest abun- 

 dance, much broken to be sure, but indistinguishable as regards 

 form and habit from their modern descendants. An occasional 

 cone-scale was uncovered furnishing conclusive proof that we were 

 not confusing cypress and sequoia, for a very abundant Tertiary 



* An undescribed flora from southern New Jersey in the hands of Dr. Hollick may 

 lie of late Miocene age. 



