12 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



found growing in a limited district), and carried with a gentle incli- 

 nation into a lake, where they were deposited along with the mud. 

 The number of trees with ever-green leaves, together with those with 

 leathery (Jiautigen) foliage, indicates a climate of 12° — 17° C. (54° 

 — 63° Fahr.) ; and as there are no palms among them which suppose 

 an annual temperature of 15° C. (59° F.), we may assume that the 

 climate of Parschlug (which at present is only 9° C. (48^° F.)) was 

 during the tertiary period 12° — 15° C. (54° — 59° F.), corresponding 

 in Europe to 45° — 42° of N. lat., or the shores of the Mediterranean ; 

 in North America to 43° — 37° N. lat., or southern Virginia. In its 

 special character this fossil flora agrees with that of the southern 

 parts of the United States of North America and of Upper Mexico. 

 In sixty-seven genera {Sipperi) there are indeed above forty which 

 belong both to the old and new continents, but in the remainder only 

 Paliurus, Zizyphus and Celastrus are confined at present to the old 

 world, whereas on the other hand, Taxodiiim, Liqiiidambar, Comp- 

 tonia, Achras^ Pi'inos, Nemopanthes, Ceanothus, Smilax, Robinia 

 and Amorplia, occur exclusively in America. In like manner the 

 number of species which have their nearest allies on the Mediterranean 

 are only twelve, whereas those related to American species are twice 

 as many, and also greatly preponderate in the number of individuals. 

 The author does not think that any species still existing occurs among 

 them, for although some remains cannot be distinguished from the 

 corresponding parts of living plants, yet he believes that as the greater 

 number are certainly distinct, w^e must draw the same conclusion re- 

 garding the few that remain*. 



Besides Parschlug, where a tooth of the Mastodon angustidens was 

 found in the coal, there are some other localities of tertiary plants, as 

 Aflenz and Turnau (where the miocene Dorcatherium Naui has oc- 

 curred), Winkel, Hauenstein, Judenburg and Leoben, which however 

 have not furnished many well-preserved species, and very few identical 

 with those of Parschlug, a greater number indeed agreeing more nearly 

 with those of other remoter localities f (although if we rightly under- 

 stand the author, he considers the formations at Winkel, Leoben, &c., 

 as identical with that of Parschlug) . Parschlug likewise shows more 

 agreement with distant localities, as Oningen, Bilin, Radoboj and 

 Haring, some of which have produced also insects, fishes, reptiles, and 

 mammalia, and must in like manner be regarded as miocene ; and in 

 respect of the plants, insects and reptiles, possess, according to the 

 researches of Al. Braun, Osw. Heer, and Herm. v. Meyer, a closer 

 relationship to North America, Japan, and the Mediterranean coun- 



* Since it is beyond all doubt that the tertiary strata contain species of molhisks 

 and mammalia which still occur living, so that tlie proportion of recent shells in 

 different deposits is found = 0-20 — 0*50 — 0-80 — 0*95, and R. Owen estimates 

 that of the mammalia in England at 0*50, it seems to us, as we have often stated, 

 juster and more unprejudiced to allow those things to remain united which we 

 cannot distinguish, especially as the opposite conduct leads to results to which no 

 end can be assigned. Why should we, by violent separations, produce forced ex- 

 ceptions to the universal laws of nature? — Edit. L. 8-; B/s Jahr. 



t The difference does not however seem of much importance, and in consequence 

 of the small number of species known from these places, perhaps only accidentaL 



