84 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



both these principal organs with those in a living form make it pretty well a matter of 

 certainty that the other organs were also identical, and that the fossil formed a no less 

 majestic tree than the living. If such an induction were not permissible, there would be 

 an end to palaeontology. We may, therefore, consider that our fossil Cypress was a tree, 

 stately and erect, towering as straight as an arrow to perhaps a height of 150, and with 

 a girth of a dozen or even a score of feet. We may picture a conical outline such as these 

 trees now possess in their Himalayan habitats, with branches slightly drooping, the 

 branchlets ferny and feathery and of a beautiful greyish green. The Cupressineous 

 wood of Lough Neagh doubtless belonged to this tree, and huge logs of it were 

 formerly found ; and we may infer that before petrifaction it must have been as deliciously 

 fragrant as that of Cujn-essus torulosa, held sacred by some tribes through its perfume. 

 This does not prevent the clumps or larger masses which clothe the hills from 4000 to 

 8000 feet up, from suffering the same fate as the Deodar, where water-transit is avail- 

 able, and large quantities annually reach the Indian markets. A pecuharity about the 

 Irish distribution of C. Pritchardi is that it seems confined to the Iron-ores of Bally- 

 paladay, and is absent (unhke Cryptomeria Sternhergii) from the bauxites and lignites 

 and from the shales of Mull, telling eloquently that the former was formed nearest the 

 mountain habitats it loved. Its preponderance shows how largely the old Alpine forests 

 of Antrim were composed of it. Mr. Baily's figure conveys an inaccurate idea of the 

 foliage, the leaflets being made to appear subangular instead of oval-acute ; and no suffi- 

 cient specific diagnosis is attached to it. I have restored Goeppert's original name to this 

 splendid and truly representative species from the Irish Tertiaries, since no inconvenience 

 can arise through including the wood with the other organs under the same specific name.^ 

 If present elsewhere in Europe, it has been mistaken for Juniperus or GlyiJtostrohus ; 

 but I am of opinion that Antrim was its southern limit, at least during the Middle and 

 Upper Eocenes. It seems to have been present in some of the more northern Floras, 

 though no satisfactory figures of it occur in Heer's works. Any of the very unsatis- 

 factory fragments figured as Thuites E/irenswdrdi, Th. Meriani, Tli. Parry anus, might 

 have been detached from the specimens represented in figures 1 and 2 of PI. XIX, and 

 Mr. Whymper's Greenland Conifer, determined as Widdringtonia helvetica^ may probably 

 also belong to it. 



Genus — Cryptomeria." 



This genus is confined to China and Japan, and now possesses only one species, though 

 many varieties have been produced during the ages it has been under cultivation. The 

 male and female flowers are separate but on the same plant. The cones are solitary or 



1 A careful examination, by Mr. Carruthers, of some twenty prepared sections of different specimens 

 of the wood from Lougli Neagh failed to show any variation or new characters, all apparently belonging 

 to one kind of tree. ^ See ante p. 29. 



