392 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. XVIII. 
stated that such fossils as I was in search of did indeed occur in 
the region, hut that they were only accessible at low water. I 
immediately visited the place with the physician and my com¬ 
panions from Nagasaki, and soon discovered several strata 
containing the finest fossil plants one could desire. During 
this and the following day I made a rich collection, partly with 
the assistance of a numerous crowd of children who zealously 
helped me in collecting. They were partly boys and partly girls, 
the latter always having a little one on their backs. These little 
children were generally quite bare-headed. Notwithstanding 
this they slept with the crown of the head exposed to the hot¬ 
test sun-bath on the backs of their bustling sisters, who jumped 
lightly and securely over stocks and stones, and never appeared 
to have any idea that the burdens on their backs were at all 
unpleasant or troublesome. 
According to Dr. A. G. Nathorst’s examination, the fossil 
plants which I brought home from this place belong to the 
more recent Tertiary formation. Our distinguished and acute 
vegetable palaeontologist fixes attention on the point, that we 
would have expected to find here a fossil flora allied to the 
recent South Japanese, which is considered to be derived from 
a Tertiary flora which closely resembles it. There is, however, 
no such correspondence, for impressions of ferns are almost com¬ 
pletely wanting at Mogi, and even of pines there is only a single 
leaf-bearing variety which closely resembles the Spitzbergen 
form of Stquoia Langsdorfii, Brag. On the other hand, there 
are met with, in great abundance, the leaves of a species of 
beech nearly allied to the red beech of America, Fagus 
femoginea, Ait., but not resembling the recent Japanese 
varieties of the same family. There were found, besides, leaves 
of Quercus, Juglans, Populus, Myrica, Salix, Zelkova, Liqui- 
dambar, Acer, Prunus, Tilia, &c., resembling leaves of recent 
types from the forests of Japan, from the forest flora of 
America, or from the temperate flora of the Himalayas. But 
