EXTENT OF GAP BETWEEN CHALK AND EOCENE IN ENGLAND. 59 
cannot in all cases have been rightly determined. The very 
reasons which render it unlikely that any floras of Chalk age or 
remotely separated from the Eocene, should exist in our area, 
make it the more probable that they are to be met with in 
distant localities. The Chalk ocean did not extend over all the 
globe, and some floras should be found, as it is unlikely that 
all vestiges of land deposits of a period presumably of far longer 
duration than the whole Eocene time should have been swept 
from every part of it. And we find this to be the fact, for 
within the Arctic Circle have been found the remains of an 
evidently Cretaceous, and another which I take to be a prse- 
Eocene flora. In New Zealand we find a Cretaceo-Eocene series 
of great thickness, near the base of which occurs a an abun- 
dance of fossil leaves of dicotyledonous trees, zamias and 
palms.”* In Vancouver’s Land there are 4,000 feet of strata 
overlying the Nandimo coal beds, containing ammonites, 
baculites, and Inocerami from top to bottom; yet these are 
mingled with Eocene and even Miocene forms of mollusca, and 
are associated with oak and poplar leaves.f In India, an other- 
wise Cretaceous fauna includes gasteropoda with a decidedly 
Tertiary facies, and this appears to be the case in still other 
countries. 
In America, great consecutive series of deposits, resting on 
old rocks, and extending in time from some post-Cretaceous date 
to the Pliocene, contain extensive fossil floras. A great part 
of these have been described by American writers as Cretaceous, 
from the intercalation of marine beds with some animal remains, 
characteristic in Europe of the Cretaceous period. But it seems 
certain, from the mixture of characteristic Eocene types, that 
the existence of these forms was continued for a prolonged 
period in America after it had ceased here. We also see 
that a land fauna including Cretaceous types, and a peculiar, 
simple, and probably indigenous flora, since it has not been met 
with elsewhere, lived there for a long time, isolated from the 
more advanced types which flourished in Europe. These appear 
to have been almost suddenly replaced by a fauna and flora of 
newer and more tropical character, and, in many respects, allied 
to our Eocene, when land communication existed between the 
two hemispheres in Eocene times. The whole evidence, when 
carefully weighed, tends to prove that all the plant-bearing 
beds of America, containing dicotyledons, which have been 
described as Cretaceous, are of Cretaceo-Eocene age. They 
thus become of great interest, as partially, at least, filling up 
the great gap existing in Europe. 
* Hector, “ New Zealand Institute Trans.” Vol. iv., 1871, p. 345. 
t Geol. Surv. Canada, 1878-74, p. 260. 
