Henry Woodward — Address to the Geologists' Association. 545 



attested by tlieir fossil remains — in the Miocene formations of 

 Northern Europe. Iceland, Spitzbergen,<jrreenland, Mackenzie Eiver, 

 and Alaska. The fossil species has been named Sequoia Langsdorfi 

 by Hear, but it is very much Wee S. semper virens, now living on the 

 Californian coast, and is believed to be the ancient representative 

 of it. 



Three species at least of this giant Coniferous tree flourished in 

 Tertiary times within the Arctic zone ; the commonest of which has 

 also been found in Europe. 



So the Sequoias, now so remarkable for their restricted station and 

 numbers, as well as for their extraordinary size, are of an ancient 

 stock ; their ancestors and kindred formed a large part of the forests 

 which flourished throughout the polar regions now desolate and 

 ice-clad, and which extended into low latitudes in Europe. 



After enumerating a number of other cases of existing plants 

 which have been found associated with both the living and extinct 

 Sequoia, he concludes that our existing vegetation as a whole is a 

 continuation of that of the Tertiary period, and that this, in its turn, 

 has been derived from the preceding flora — Mr. Carruthers having 

 met with two Cretaceous fossil fruits like those of Sequoia gigantea of 

 the famous groves, associated with pines of the same character as those 

 that accompany the present tree ; whilst two or more Sequoias have 

 been met with in the Cretaceous beds of Grreenland. 



According to these views, as regards plants at least, the adaptation 

 to successive times and changed conditions has been maintained, not 

 by absolute renewals, but by gradual modifications. 



Prof. Asa Gray has no doubt that the present existing species are 

 the lineal successors of those that garnished the earth in the old time 

 before them, and that they were as well adapted to their surroundings 

 then as those which flourish and bloom around us are to their con- 

 ditions now. Order and exquisite adaptation did not wait for man's 

 coming, nor were they ever stereotyped. 



(b.) PalcBozoology. — A review of the progress of Palgeozoology 

 would be most incomplete and unsatisfactory were no allusion made 

 to the Palfeontographical Society, which was established in the year 

 1847, for the purpose of figuring and describing the whole of the 

 British "Fossils. Eight nobly has the task been carried on since that 

 date, and twenty-six large annual volumes attest in the most sub- 

 stantial manner the stability of the work. 



Much of the success of the Palaeontographical Society during these 

 later years has resulted from the miwearied attention and energy 

 bestowed upon its management by the present Honorary Secretary, 

 the Eev. Thomas Wiltshire, M.A., F.G.S., whose zeal in promoting 

 the regular publication of its volumes has produced the most 

 beneficial results to the Society. 



Already 3933 British species have been described, in .7224 quarto 

 pages of letterpress, accompanied by 1103 plates, containing 20,237 

 figures. 



Prominent among the workers in this unpaid labour of scientific 

 love will always stand the names of Bowerbank, its original pro- 

 voL. X. — so. cxiv. 35 



