222 
ELEMENTS OE GEOLOGY. 
Fig. 142. been found attached to the 
same stem as the leaf, the 
proof is incomplete. 
To whatever family the 
foliage hitherto regarded as 
proteaceous by many able 
palaeontologists . may even¬ 
tually be shown to belong, 
we must be careful not to 
question their affinity to 
that order of plants on those 
geographical considerations 
which have influenced some 
botanists. The nearest liv- 
a. Leaf. b. Flower magDified, one of the ing Proteaceae llOW flourish 
in Abyssinia in lat. 20° N., 
but the greatest number are 
8ix petals wanting at d. Upper Miocene, 
CEningen. c. Smilax- obtusifolia; Heer, 
PI. 30, Fig. 9; nat. size. Upper Miocene, 
CEningen. 
confined to the Cape and 
Australia. The ancestors, however, of the CEningen fossils 
ought not to be look- 
ed for in such distant 
regions, but from that 
European land which 
in Lower Miocene 
times bore trees with 
similar foliage, and 
these had doubtless 
an Eocene source, for 
cones admitted by all 
botanists to be pro- ^ Leaf of fossil species, Hakea salicdna. Upper Mio 
cene, (Eningen; Heer, PI. 97, Fig. 29. i diam. b. Im¬ 
pression of woody fruit of same, showing thick stalk, 
f diam. c. Seed of same, nat. size. d. Fruit of 
living Australian species, Hakea saligna, R. Brown, 
i diam. e. Seed of same, nat. size. 
Fruit of the fossil and recent species of Hakea, a genus 
of Proteacese. 
teaceous have been 
met with in one di¬ 
vision of that older 
Tertiary group (see 
Fig. 206, p. 265). The source of these last, again, must not be 
sought in the antipodes, for in the white chalk of Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle leaves like those of Grevillea and other proteaceous 
genera have been found in abundance, and as we shall see 
(p. 304) in a most perfect state of preservation. All geolo¬ 
gists agree that the distribution of the cretaceous land and 
sea had scarcely any connection with the present geography 
of the globe. 
In the same beds with the supposed Proteaceae there oc¬ 
curs at Lode a fan-palm of the American type Sabal (for ge¬ 
nus see Fig. 151), a genus which ranges throughout the low 
country near the sea from the Carolinas to Florida and Lou- 
