1883-1884.] 28I 



variety, so far as fruit and foliage go. The identity of both these 

 principal organs with those in a living form, make it pretty well 

 a matter of certainty that the other organs were identical, and 

 that the fossil formed a no less majestic tree than the living. 

 When a palaeontologist finds the bones and teeth precisely 

 agreeing with those of a horse or a crocodile, the muscles, hoofs, 

 claws, mane, and tail are assumed, and he no more doubts that 

 th^ horse possessed all these, and browsed and galloped, than he 

 does that the crocodile lurked and basked as he does now. If such 

 inductions were not permissible there would be an end to palae- 

 ontology. We may therefore consider that our fossil Cypress 

 was a tree, stately and erect, towering as straight as an arrow to 

 perhaps a height of 150 feet, and with a girth of a dozen or even 

 a score of feet. We may picture a conical outline such as these 

 trees now possess in their Himalayan habitats, with branches 

 slightly drooping, the branchlets ferny and feathery, and of a 

 beautiful greyish green. The Cupressineous wood of Lough 

 Neagh doubtless belonged to this tree, and huge logs of it were 

 formerly found. The wood before petrifaction must have been 

 as deliciously fragrant as that of C. tortilosa, held sacred by some 

 tribes through its perfume. This does not prevent the clumps 

 or larger masses which clothe the hills from 4000 to 8000 feet 

 from suffering the fate of the Deodar, where water transit is avail- 

 able and large quantities of its timber annually reach the Indian 

 markets. A peculiarity about the Irish distribution of this 

 particular conifer is that it seems confined to Ballypalady, and 

 is absent in both the Bauxites and Lignites, telling eloquently 

 that the former was formed nearest the mountain habitats it 

 loved. Its preponderance shows how largely the old Alpine 

 forests of Antrim were composed of it. A few fragments from 

 the Arctic floras, figured by Heer under various names, may 

 belong to it. 



Next, and scarcely less important, is the Cryptomeria^ whose 

 presence in such abundance is truly remarkable. This is a 

 genus now completely confined to Japan and China, and possess- 

 ing but one species. I at first assigned the remains definitely 



