12 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



bergen. The Carboniferous flora numbers 12 species, the Cretaceous 

 14 species, some of which are identical with those in European 

 strata. The Miocene flora numbers 162 species, of which 112 are 

 new, while very few are referable to forms actually living in those 

 regions. Central and South European, Japanese, and especially 

 Asiatic and American types are found. Taxodium duhium, Sequoia 

 Langsdorfii, Alnus Kefersteini, Fagus Deucalionis, and Platanus ace- 

 roides, are the prevailing forms. Palms, fine-leaved Leguminosce, 

 and Cinnamomum are absent. It may be concluded from the general 

 character of this flora that the mean annual temperature of the 

 Arctic regions was not lower than 48° Fahr. 



The deposits of this period are in these regions intimately con- 

 nected with the eruptive rocks and their tuffs. The sandstones, 

 with large plates of mica, in Greenland and Iceland, and their 

 yellowish-white tuffs, call to mind the tuffs of Gleichenberg, and 

 other German trachytic and rhyolitic tuffs in which Palms do not 

 occur. Several Arctic forms, as Sequoia Langsdorffi, Phragmites 

 (Eiiingensis, Salix macrophylla, Betula prisca, Fagus Deucalionis^ 

 Planera Ungeri and Platanus aceroides are characteristic of the Con- 

 gerian and Sarmatian strata. A petiolate Proteacean leaf mentioned 

 by Mr. D. Stur as allied to Halcea Erdohenjensis, a Hungarian Mio- 

 cene species, may possibly be referable to MacClintocTda Lyelli. The 

 lower beds of the Vienna and Hungarian basins include few eruptive 

 rocks and tuffs, but they are everywhere connected with strata con- 

 taining the remains of Palms. The entire absence of Palms from 

 the Arctic and European Sarmatian tuffs is far from being certain, 

 and until the presence of Castanea Kuhinyi and Parrotia pristina in 

 the Polar regions has been established, no comparison can be made 

 between the Arctic tuffs and those of the Sarmatian horizon. 

 Possibly, sedimentary rocks of older date than the Miocene may be 

 completely absent from the Polar regions, as they are in the grand 

 valley of Hungary. This supposition admitted, the American and 

 European floras may have been connected during the older Miocene 

 period without the intervention of a hypothetical Atlantis. 



[Count M.] 



On the Geology of the Altai Mountains. 

 Py Prof. Bernhaed von Cotta. 



[Proc. Imp. Geol. Institute, Vienna, March 2, 1869.] 



Professor Cotta, who visited the Altai' group during the summer of 

 1868, at the request of the Russian Government, with the special 

 object of investigating the metalliferous deposits of those mountains, 

 gives the following account of their geology. The principal rocks 

 of the Altai' are : — 



1. Crystalline slates. 



2. Silurian slates. 



3. Devonian limestone. 



4. Carboniferous limestones, shales, and sandstones. 



