85 



are very numerous. The most characteristic of the plants are 

 the group of Cycadeae, of which stems in the isle of Portland, and 

 leaves and fruit in Yorkshire, show considerable analogy to the 

 existing forms of the tribe at the Cape of Good Hope, in India 

 and Australia. 



The sponges resemble those of New Holland. Among the 

 Saurians, those which frequented the water predominate in 

 number, but the largest forms were terrestrial (Iguanodon, Me- 

 galosaurus). It is interesting to know that the earliest Mam- 

 malia, of which we have yet any trace, were of the marsupial 

 division now almost characteristic of Australia, the country 

 where yet remain the Trigonia, Cerithium, Isocardia,Zamia, tree- 

 fern, and other forms of life so analogous to those of the oolitic 

 periods. During the deposition of the European formation the 

 rivers and shores were inhabited by Saurian s more or less am- 

 phibious, while the sea was full of forms of Zoophyta, Mollusca, 

 Articulosa and Fishes. 



Within the south tropical zone we find a similar scene of or- 

 ganic life in the seas, lagoons, and on land enjoying their limited 

 existence. Here the rivers, such as the Amazon and its shores, 

 are watched by amphibious Saurians, the living representatives 

 of the Megalosaurus and Iguanodon. Although the identical 

 species have become extinct, yet the alligator, crocodile, gavial, 

 and the bavial of South America (the latter was seen by the writer 

 in the lagoons of equatorial America, having a head like an iguana 

 and a body like a crocodile), are sufficient to show the corre- 

 spondence of this zone to the fossils of the oolitic group. 



When we consider the myriads of reptiles which inhabit this 

 zone, it is not surprising that their relics should be found in 

 sediments within their own element; nor is it to be wondered at 

 that no traces of man and his works have been found in such 

 deposits. There are regions at present in the Indian and Pacific 

 Oceans co-extensive in area with the continents of Europe and 

 North America, where we might dredge the bottom and draw up 

 thousands of shells and corals without obtaining one bone of a 

 land quadruped. The casualties must always be rare by which 

 land quadrupeds are swept by rivers far out into the open sea, 

 and still rarer the contingency of such a floating body not being 

 devoured by sharks or other predaceous fish. If the carcass 



