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analogy with that now existing in the Southern United 

 States of North America. But there was a part of it which 

 was also allied to eastern Asiatic forms ; and Professor 

 Oliver hence endeavored to show that it was more probable 

 that the plants had migrated by way of Eastern Asia to the 

 miocene regions of Europe. Though I am of opinion, and 

 though I have endeavoured to prove in my papers on West 

 Indian geology, that Professor Oliver's hypothesis is scarcely 

 the most probable, I am glad that his very able essay will 

 still be of great service ; for the data given by him are 

 really as much to the point if we assume a migration 

 towards the East, a proposition which is indeed far more 

 tenable on physical grounds, though at first sight appa- 

 rently not so, on account of the great depth and width of 

 the Atlantic which makes us recoil from the idea of a land 

 connection between the shores of the Atlantic, so lately, 

 speaking geologically, as the period in question, that of the 

 upper miocene. This latter argument seems to have weighed 

 very strongly with Sir Charles Eyell who, in the 6th edition 

 of his Elements of Geology, devotes several pages to a close 

 examination of this question. These learned gentlemen 

 seem to have overlooked the fact that the European miocene 

 flora is extinct, whilst that of North America, Japan, &c, is 

 living, and that, as Mr. Hamilton has remarked, it is not 

 possible that a migration should take place from a living 

 to an extinct flora. 



At first sight this difficulty seems to be removed by the 

 researches of Lesquereux and Newbery who have shown 

 that the Eocene flora of North America is closely allied to 

 that of the Miocene of Europe. But this argument, though 

 available for either hypothesis, bears much more strongly 



