Ch. XV.] 



LOWER MIOCENE STRATA, SWITZERLAND. 



259 



The most abundant of the associated plants are two species of cin- 

 namon, one of them already mentioned as frequent at CEningen, C. 

 poli/morpJium, fig. 188. Next to these in number come species of 

 the dogwood, or Comics, of the hornbeam, Carpinus, and of the buck- 

 thorn Mhamnus. Among the fir-tribe or coniferse is a Taxodium 

 nearly allied to the deciduous cypress, T. distichum, of 1ST. America. 

 Professor Goppert considers it the same, but linger and Heer have 

 pointed out differences, shaving that it is at least a marked variety. 

 Among the ferns is found a Woodwardia (see fig. 195), so like the 

 living W. radiecins, that in spite of the large size and some slight dif- 

 ferences in the shape of the leaf (a part so often variable in ferns), it 

 may, says Heer, be a question with some botanists whether the fossil 

 does not agree specifically with the recent plant. Yet this fern ranges 

 still lower, being also found at Monocl, a locality to which I shall 

 presently allude. 



Before quitting the plants of this lower division of the molasse, I 

 may mention that a fan-palm, Chamcerops Helvetica (fig. 196), occurs 

 at Utznach, in the Canton of St. Gall, in Lower Miocene strata some- 

 what higher in the series than those of Eritz. This genus is now 

 South European, Asiatic, and American. 



Fig. 196. 



Fig. 197. 



Cliaraerops Helvetica, Heer. 

 Utznach, St. Gall, Lower Miocene. (Heer, Flora 

 Foes. Helvet, pi. 41.) 



Saoal major, linger sp. Vevay, Lower 

 Miocene. (Heer, pi. 41.) Genus now 

 proper to America. 



The inferior subdivision of the Lower Molasse, called Aquitanian 

 in Heer's work, is best seen on the northern coast of the Lake of 

 Geneva. The beds consist of sandstone and conglomerate, and are 

 nearly 2000 feet thick. The conglomerates are often very unequal in 

 thickness, in closely adjoining districts, as might be expected, since 

 in a littoral formation accumulations of pebbles would swell out in 

 certain places where rivers entered the sea, and would thin out to 

 comparatively small dimensions where no streams or only small ones 

 came down to the coast, These old shingle-beds attain in the Rigi, 

 and in the mountain called Speer, near Lucerne, a thickness of 5000 

 and 7000 feet. 



