58 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
We know, it is true, but little of the earlier Cretaceous floras, 
but what we do know of that of the Neocomian shows it to be 
closely similar to the Wealden flora, and this has most affinity 
with the Jurassic. In the Gault I have collected, with the 
assistance of John Griffiths, at Folkestone, for 20 years, and 
five new species of cones have been described by Mr. Carruthers 
from the collection I have made alone. Notwithstanding that 
branches of conifers with leaves attached are by no means rare, 
that a variety of cones have been found, and that wood and 
resin is abundant, no trace whatever of a dicotyledon has been 
met with. In a Gault deposit of Hainault eight distinct cones 
and much wood, both of conifers and cycads, were met 
with,^ similarly without the presence of any dicotyledon.* 
Neither has any trace of them been found in the Green-sands 
or the Chalk. Notwithstanding this, it has been said that the 
Gault contains the dawn of the present flora ; but we see at 
Folkestone that the Gault fauna melts most gradually into that 
of the Grey Chalk overlying it ; and therefore if any inference 
may be drawn, it would be, that as we see even a less amount 
of change in the flora than in the fauna from Jurassic to Creta- 
ceous, and in other times, whenever it has been possible to 
observe it, there is no reason to suppose it changed more rapidly 
than the fauna between Gault and Chalk. Without, I hope, 
attaching undue importance to negative evidence, it must be 
allowed some weight in the absence of any other kind, and in 
this instance, it is against any flora which contains dicotyledons 
being as old as our Chalk, and far more, the Gault. 
Certain floras, described as Cretaceous, have been met with in 
Austria, Saxony, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, some of which have 
been stated to be of Lower Chalk-age ; and a considerable flora, 
reputed to be contemporary with our Upper Chalk, has been 
collected at Aix-la-Chapelle. The age of these deposits how- 
ever is of the greatest uncertainty, and has been recognised upon 
mere opinions, which have differed so much at times that the 
same beds have been assigned to very different divisions of the 
Cretaceous, and even to other and younger series. The litho- 
logical characters and the nature of the floras render it 
probable that the Aix-la-Chapelle flora especially may be 
Eocene, and the others rather older, but of a period long sub- 
sequent to the Cretaceous formation in England. The diversi- 
fied characters and frequently Eocene aspect of these supposed 
newer Cretaceous floras, wherever they are found in Europe are so 
opposed to the intimate interconnection existing between those 
of the Eocene and Miocene of the same area, as to furnish 
additional proof that their ages must be very various, and 
M. Cowman’s “ Flore fossile de Ilainaut.’ 
