Ch. XV.] LOWER MIOCENE STRATA, SWITZERLAND. 261 



affinity to the flora of (Eningen as to make it natural for the botanist 

 to refer the whole, to one and the same Miocene period. There are, 

 indeed, no less than 81 species of these Older Miocene plants which 

 pass up into the flora of (Eningen, and in this number, says Heer, are 

 many of those which, by an abundance of individuals and by their 

 arborescence, must have constituted a leading feature in the forests 

 of that era. 



Nearly all the plants at Monod are contained in three layers of 

 marl separated by two of soft sandstone. The thickness of the marls 

 is ten feet, and vegetable matter predominates so much in some layers 

 as to form an imperfect lignite. One bed is filled with large leaves 

 of a species of fig (Ficus popidina), and of a hornbeam (Carpinus 

 grandis), the strength of the wind having probably been great when 

 they were blown into the lake ; whereas another contiguous layer 

 contains almost exclusively smaller leaves, indicating, apparently, a 

 diminished strength in the wind. Some of the upper beds at Monod 

 abound in leaves of Proteacese, Cypercaceas, and ferns, while some 

 of the lower ones, Sequoia, Cinnamomum, and Sparganium, are com- 

 mon. In one bed of sandstone the trunk of a large palm tree was 

 found unaccompanied by other fossils, and near Vevay, in the same 

 series of Lower Miocene strata, the leaves of a palm of the genus 

 Sabal were obtained (see fig. 197, p. 259). 



Among other genera of the same class is a Flabellaria occurring 

 near Lausanne, and a magnificent Phoenicites allied to the date palm. 

 When these plants flourished the climate must have been much hot- 

 ter than now. The Alps were no doubt lower, and the palms now 

 found fossil in strata elevated 2000 feet above the sea, grew nearly at 

 the sea-level, as is demonstrated by the brackish-water character of 

 some of the beds into which they were carried by winds or rivers 

 from the adjoining coast. 



In the same plant-bearing deposits of the Lower Molasse in Switz- 

 erland have been found no less than 20 species of Proteacese, an 

 order already spoken of as being well represented in the (Eningen 

 beds, though by no means so plentifully as in these Lower Miocene 

 strata, and which were still more strikingly predominant in the ante- 

 cedent Eocene and in the still more ancient Cretaceous formations. 



One of the following named plants, Dryandra Schrankii, comes 

 very near to D. formosa, R. Brown, a living New Holland species, 

 and is considered by Heer as " homologous," but the leaf only of the 

 fossil is known. This is one of the species which characterizes all 

 stages of the Lower Miocene, and is not found in the Upper. It also 

 occurs in Great Britain in the Miocene beds cf the Island of Mull, in 

 the Hebrides, and in the lignite of Bovey Tracey, in Devonshire. 



The Proteas and other plants of this family now flourish at the 

 Cape of Good Hope ; while the Banksias, and a set of genera distinct 

 from those of Africa grow most luxuriantly in the southern and 

 temperate parts of Australia. They were probably inhabitants, says 



