I'ossil Botany. l8t 



Southern hemisphere; the cinnamon, fig, magnoUa, diospyros and 

 many other trees and plants now restricted to tropical and semi- 

 tropical countries, intermingled with extinct species of sycamore, 

 oak, walnut, elm, ash, pine and other genera now represented by 

 other and corresponding forms. We are now tempted to inquire, 

 what changes have taken place in the animal life of the region ? 

 and if we carefully carry out the line of study, to which the ques- 

 tion points, we will be enabled to see the former denizens of the 

 forests and streams, in all their wondrous forms and huge dimen- 

 sions, showing, like the vegetation, a curious admixture of genera 

 and forms of animals now found living in different climates and 

 widely separated countries. 



We may view, with perfect safety, the terrific combats between 

 the mammoth and mailed rhinoceros; the stealthy advance of the 

 imperial tiger (Felis imperialis) equal in size, and doubtless no less 

 ferocious than its royal namesake of Bengal; the llama, standing 

 eighteen ieet high, whose diminutive representative, about the size 

 of a deer, is now doing service as a beast of burden in the Andes 

 of South America; the three-toed horse, well adapted to feed 

 around the marshes enfringing the islands and peninsulas compos- 

 ing a great portion of the lands of the period, in what is now Cen- 

 tral California; the deer, the hog, and non-descripts which were 

 neither hog, horse, ox nor deer, but combined characteristics of 

 several now widely separated families. 



The writer has found nearly all the above named animals- in the 

 later tertiary deposits of Central and Northern California, discov- 

 ering new and previously unknown species of mastodon, llama, 

 tiger, wolf, &c. , and has portions of their fossil remains in his col- 

 lection. 



These and many other forms of animals roamed the plains and 

 table lands, browsed upon and fed under the shade of trees, whose 

 silicified fragments are now found scattered over the plains, or im- 

 bedded in drifts and gravel deposits, or in the '^Blue Gravel" of 

 the "Dead Rivers" of the Pacific Coast. 



Santa Barbara, Cal., August lo, 1887. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



THE FERNS OF JAMAICA. 



BY DR. LORENZO G. YATES. 



Jamaica, the Xaymaca or land of wood and water, of the abo- 

 rigines, is the largest island of the British West Indies, lying be- 

 tween the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, between 17° 40' 

 and 18° 50' north latitude; its area is variously estimated from 

 3,250 square miles according to the Government Survey, up to 

 6,400 square miles, the first figures being, probably, the most re- 

 liable. 



