SYMONDS — NOTES OF A GEOLOGIST IN IRELAND. 335 



animals were replaced by newly-created forms, so does it appear to 

 have been with the vegetable world ; and the fossil-botanist informs us 

 that we may not date the epoch of the oldest species of existing plants 

 as anterior to the Eocene period. And here the phenomena of the 

 flora of the west of Ireland give rise to some interesting speculations, 

 in which the saxifrages and heaths we see around are intimately 

 concerned. The most profound naturalist of modern days, Professor 

 Edward Eorbes, in his endeavours to trace the origin of the flora and 

 fauna of the British islands, arrived at some very remarkable conclusions 

 respecting the Iberian flora of the west coast of Ireland. The British 

 flora is divided by Eorbes into five great groups — the Iberian, the 

 Erench, the English, the Alpine, and the Germanic ; and to explain 

 the origin of the Iberian flora, with which we have to deal. Professor 

 Eorbes believed that a great continent was formed by the upheaval 

 of the Miocene tertiaries, which extended far into the Atlantic ; and 

 that this tract bore the peculiar fauna and flora now known as the 

 Mediterranean, fragments of which are still met with isolated in the 

 Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, as well as in Ireland, and on the 

 Spanish peninsula. Thus Eorbes believed that the saxifrages and 

 heaths of Kerry and Connemara are the survivors of this ancient flora 

 — flowers far older than those of any of the other four floras — flowers 

 which bloomed when the west of Ireland was geologically united with 

 the north of Spain, and which have survived even the great climatal 

 changes of the glacial epoch. If this hypothesis be correct, the saxi- 

 frages and heaths of this western coast will probably be the oldest 

 survivors of the last floral changes upon the plant's surface. Yerily, 

 with " Old Eed " mountains, ancient glaciers, and plants still in 

 existence that probably flourished when the west of Ireland was a 

 portion of an old Miocene continent, we had much to think of, although 

 the route back to Breen's peat fire and Kerry mutton was rough and 

 weary. 



{To he continued.) 



