AJ5TD GEAVELS OF AEETUX, ETC., IN MULL. 



293 



and the Taxites, a yew-like conifer of a type actually common 

 to every flora, from the Jurassic upwards, was something like a 

 Miocene conifer from Carinthia. 



The next reference to the Mull flora that I have traced occurs 

 in LyelPs ' Elementary Geology,' 5th ed. 1855, p. 181, where the 

 author says, " no accompanying fossil shells have been met with, 

 and there seems therefore the same uncertainty in determining 

 whether these beds are Upper Eocene or Miocene, which we ex- 

 perience when we endeavour to fix the age of many continental 

 Brown-Coal formations, those of Croatia not excepted." Jukes, 

 Phillips, and other contemporary writers make no mention of the 

 Ardtun plants, and no very definite opinions concerning them seem 

 to have been formed until 1856, when De la Harpe visited 

 England. 



He wrote, after examining them, that though most of the im- 

 pressions are hardly determinable, and he is unable to identify any 

 with known species, he fully coincides with Forbes's opinion, and 

 can only regard them as a Miocene flora*. 



In 1859 Heer pronounced them to be Miocene, though he had 

 not seen the specimens, and had only the rather defective figures of 

 Forbes's very imperfect specimens to go upon ; yet this opinion seems 

 to have been regarded as final, and has remained uncontradicted to the 

 present day. What he actually said wasf that Ardtun Head was 

 the only point in Great Britain which had until then yielded 

 Miocene plants, amongst which were Sequoia Langsdorfii and Pla- 

 tanus aceroides, Gp. (?). In a footnote (p. 314) he is more explicit^ : 

 but we see that the Taxites of Mull has shorter leaves than the 

 Sequoia it is identified with ; the Platanus is only very probably the 

 P. aceroides, the imperfect preservation of the margin leaving room 

 for some doubt to exist : the Alnites is perhaps the Corylus ; the Rliam- 



* " Quoique la plupart des empreintes recueillies soient peu determinables et 

 que je n'en puisse rapporter aucune a des especes counues, je partage pleine- 

 ment l'opinion de M. Forbes, et n'y vois aussi qu'une florule de l'epoque 

 Miocene. La presence d'un Alnits ? {Alnites ? MacQuarrii, Forb., pi. iv. fig. 3) ; 

 celle (probable) d'un Acer (Platanites hebridicus, Forb., pi. iii. fig. 5, et pi. iv. 

 fig. 1), voisin de YAcerites integerrimus, Viv. ; et celle d'un Bhamnus (Bkam- 

 nites? midtinervatus, Forb., et Bkamnites? major, Forb., pi. iii. fig. 2 et 3) ; 

 enfin, la position geologique du gisement sont autant de motifs en faveur de 

 cette opinion." (Bull, de la Soc. Vaudoise, 1856.) 



f Flora Tert, Helv. vol. iii. p. 313. 



\ " Der Taxites Campbellii, Forb., ist die Sequoia Langsdorfii ; die Blatter 

 sind zwar etwas kiirzer als sie bei unsern Exemplaren gewohnlich vorkommen, 

 doch finden sich solcke kurzblattrige Formen auch bei uns und in Oestreich 

 (cf. lingers ' Iconogr.' Taf. 15. fig. 13). Platanus hebridicus, Forb., ist sehr 

 wahrscheinlich PI. aceroides, Gp. Das Blatt hat nur 3 Hauptnerven (kann 

 daber nicht zu Acer integerrimus, Viv., gehoren) und iiberhaupt ganz die Ner- 

 vation der genannten Platane. Leider ist aber cler Blattrand nur an wenigen 

 Stellen srbalten, und so bleibt immer nocb einiger Zweifel ; sonst miisste der 

 Name von Forbes als der altere vorangestellt werden. Taf. 3, fig. 4, gehort 

 vielleicht zu Gorylus grosse-dentata, Hr. Die Bardbildung ist wabrscheinlicli 

 unrichtig gezeicbnet. Taf. 3, fig. 2 (Bkamnites? multinervatus, Forb.), ist 

 wohl Berchemia multinervis, A. Br., sp. Die merkwurdigste Art ist der Fili- 

 ates ? hebridicus, Forb., ein Farrenkraut, das in seiner Nervation sehr von alien 

 des Continentes abweicht." 



