112 



LUSITANIAN PROVINCE. 



such species as were most hardy, saxifrages, heaths, 

 such plants as Arabis ciliata and Pinguicula gran- 

 dijlora, which are now the only relics of the most 

 ancient of our island floras. 



"This, I admit, is a startling proposition, and 

 demands great geological operations to bring about 

 the required phenomena. With such a gulf as now 

 intervenes between Ireland and Asturias, it may 

 seem fanciful and daring to suppose their union 

 within the epoch of the existence of the plants now 

 living in both countries. What then are the geolo- 

 gical probabilities of the question ? 



" During the epoch of the deposition of the mio- 

 cene tertiaries there was sea — probably shallow — 

 inhabited by an assemblage, almost uniform, of 

 marine animals throughout the Mediterranean re- 

 gion (tertiaries of Cerigo, Candia, Malta, Corsica, 

 Malaga, Algiers), across the south of France (Mont- 

 pellier, Bordeaux), along the west of the peninsula 

 (Lisbon, &c), and in the Azores (St. Mary's). I 

 speak to the uniform zoological character of this 

 sea from personal examination of its fossils. 



" During the miocene epoch, then, we can suppose 

 no union of Asturias and Ireland. But at the close 

 of the miocene epoch great geological operations 

 took place : witness the miocene marine beds dis- 

 covered by Lieutenant Spratt and myself, at eleva- 

 tions from 2,000 to 6,000 feet in the Lycian Taurus. 

 The whole of the bed of this great miocene sea 

 appears to have been in the central Mediterranean 



