On the Ancient Plant- World. 269 



of Montmartre. the plant beds of Savthe (M. Crie), and the neigh- 

 bourhood of Angers, the Isle of Wight, and the lignite of Skopau in 

 Saxony. 



The flora of Aix is somewhat newer; it occurs in an old lacustrine 

 deposit, 20 kilometres in length, by 15 in width ; it exhibits a rich 

 flora, made up partly of European elements, and partly of plants 

 now become purely exotic — Palms, Flabellaria Lamanonis, near to 

 those of China, Dracceras near to the Dragon Trees of the Canaries, 

 Bananas near to those of Abyssinia and Africa, with plants of 

 Australian and Madagascan flora affinities. Acacias abounded, whose 

 modern representative affords the favourite food of the Giraffe. 



Amongst the flora is a Magnolia leaf, the corolla of a Catalpa near 

 to a Chinese species. Magnificent corollas of Bombax, and a Fig, 

 Ficas venusta, near to F. pseudocarica, Mig., of Upper Egypt. 

 Associated with the tropical types are the temperate forms, Oaks, 

 Beeches, Elms, Poplars, and other temperate forms; these, however, 

 are of rare occurrence, and it is suggested that they lived well above 

 the level of the ancient lake, and experienced a different climate to 

 that prevailing in the lower valleys. The facies of this apparently 

 more temperate flora is rather that now existing in Central Asia 

 than in Northern Europe as regards the Birch and Elm, while the 

 Oaks resemble those of Louisiana, the Poplars those of the Euphrates 

 and Eiver Jordan ; and on the whole the flora appears to have resembled 

 that of Central Africa, with some elements in that of Southern Asia 

 and China — conditions which lasted on to the end of the Oligocene, 

 which is, however, characterized by the gradual introduction of 

 Miocene species. Amongst the new types that appeared in Europe 

 were species of Conifers, Ghamcvcyparis, many Sequoias, Taxodium. 

 Amongst the Palms the Sabal Hceringiana, S. major, and Flabellaria 

 latifolia; amongst the Myricas, Comptonia dryandrcefolia, Brogn., most 

 of them plants of an American type requiring either the presence of 

 water or of a humid atmosphere. These plants traversed Northern 

 America, Europe and Asia, and are associated with Oaks, Elms, etc., 

 replacing the plants with African affinities, whose modern repre- 

 sentatives require a large precipitation of rain. 



The author refers to the presence of tropical types, as Cycads, Ferns, 

 and Gleichenia, in the Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits of the Arctic 

 lands, and especially to the number of species and profusion of the 

 genus Sequoia, the presence of Glyptostrobus thuja ; and he 

 comments on the absence of the more purely southern forms, as the 

 Palms, Pandanas, and Dragon Trees. In the succeeding epoch, the 

 Miocene, of the Arctic region, the larger number of species appear for 

 the first time on a horizon about parallel with that of the. European 

 Oligocene, which received from the Arctic Ocean the Limes, Chest- 

 nuts, Willows, Cedars, Birches, just alluded to, which migrated over 

 the whole of Europe, and occupied the whole of the temperate area. 

 Elevation of Central Europe took place, and the sediment called 

 Flysch, or " shales with Fucoids," was thrown down in saturated salt 

 lakes resembling the Caspian and Sea of Aral. These Algaa become 

 extinct in this deposit, though ranging up from the Palaeozoic, and 



