468 Transactions. — Geolofjy. 



to obtain, the peculiar reptilian fauna which characterizes this period indi- 

 cating unmistakably the existence of a warm temperature in the seas, 

 lakes, and rivers, whilst the flora supports the hypotheses of Heer, 

 Adolphe Brogniart, and others, that the climate of Europe, e\'en within 

 12^° at the Pole, must have resembled that of the West Indies at the 

 present day. 



I might repeat the same language with regard to the Triassic, Jurassic, 

 Carboniferous, Devonian and Silurian periods, all of which afford similar 

 evidence, but I prefer quoting the following general remarks on the subject, 

 with which Sir Charles Lyell concludes the eleventh chapter of his work : — 

 " The result, then, of our examination in this and the preceding chapter, of 

 the organic and inorganic evidence relating to the climate of successive 

 geological periods, is in favour of the opinion that a warmer temperature 

 generally prevailed in the northern hemisphere from the 30th parallel of 

 latitude to the pole than that now experienced. In the Pliocene era the 

 fauna and flora of Central Europe were sub-tropical, and a vegetation 

 resembling that now found in Northern Europe extended into the arctic 

 regions as far as they have been yet explored, and probably reached the 

 pole itself. In the secondary or Mesozoic ages, the predominance of reptile 

 life, and the general character of the fossil types of the great class of 

 vertebrata, indicate a warm climate and an absence of frost between the 

 40th parallel of latitude and the pole, a large Ichthyosaurus having been 

 found in latitude 17° 16', and -the general character of the Mollusca and 

 corals, as well as of the plants, being in perfect accordance with the 

 inferences deduced from the fossil repLiles, If we carry back our retrospect 

 to the primary or Paleozoic ages, we find an assemblage of plants that 

 imply that a warm, humid, and equable climate extended in the Carboni- 

 ferous period uninterruptedly from the 30th parallel of latitude to within a 

 few degrees of the pole, or to northern regions where at present the severe 

 winter's frost and the almost miiversal covering of snow, lasting for many 

 months, preclude the existence of a luxuriant vegetation. In rocks older 

 than the Carboniferous the evidence of plants, insects, and fish fails us ; but 

 the invertebrate fauna has such a resemblance to that of the latter primary 

 and the older secondary periods as to force us to believe that the climate of 

 the temperate and arctic regions was very analogous to that which generally 

 prevailed in these subsequent epochs." 



As before observed, however. Sir Charles, and those who follow him, 

 decline to admit that heat radiated from the surface of our globe during its 

 secular cooling from an original heated condition, had any influence in 

 producing these observed differences in climate in the northern regions, 

 and attribute them entirely to successive changes in the distribution of laud 



