LOWER MOLASSE OF SWITZERLAND. 
237 
Fig. 151. 
companied by other fossils, and near Vevay, in the same se¬ 
ries of Lower Miocene strata, the leaves of a palm of the ge¬ 
nus Sahal (Fig. 151), a genus now proper to America, were 
obtained. 
Among other genera of the same class is a Flabellaria oc¬ 
cur rin 2 : near Lausanne, and a magnificent Fhoenicites allied 
to the date palm. When these 
plants flourished the climate must 
have been much hotter than now. 
The Alps were no doubt much 
lower, and the palms now found 
fossil in strata elevated 2000 feet 
above the sea grew nearly at the 
sea-level, as is demonstrated by the 
brackish-water character of some 
of the beds into which they were 
carried by winds or rivers from 
the adjoining coast. 
In the same plant-bearing depos¬ 
its of the Lower Molasse in Swit- Sahal major, Unger sp. Vevay. 
T T 1 1 1 i:* T Lower Miocene; Heer, PI. 41. 
zerland leaves have been lound 
which have been ascribed to the order Proteacege already 
spoken of as well represented in the CEningen beds (see p. 
221). The Proteas and other plants of this family now 
flourish at the Cape of Good Hope; while the Banksias, and 
a set of genera distinct from those of Africa, grow most lux¬ 
uriantly in the southern and temperate parts of Australia. 
They were probably inhabitants, says Heer, of dry hilly 
ground, and the stiff leathery character of their leaves must 
have been favorable to their preservation, allowing them to 
float on a river for great distances without being injured, and 
then to sink, when water-logged, to the bottom. It has been 
objected that the fruit of the Proteacese is of so tough and 
enduring a texture that it ought to have been more com¬ 
monly met with; but in the first place we must not forget 
the numerous cones found in the Eocene strata of Sheppey, 
which all admit to be proteaceous and to belong to at least 
two species (see p. 22,2). Secondly, besides the fruit of Ha- 
kea before mentioned (p. 221), Heer found associated with 
fossil leaves, having the exact form and nervation of Bank- 
sia, fruit precisely such as may have come from a cone of 
that plant, and lately he has received another similar fruit 
from the Lower Miocene strata of Lucerne. They may have 
fallen out of a decayed cone in the same way as often hap¬ 
pens to the seeds of the spruce fir, Pinus abies^ found scat¬ 
tered over the ground in our woods. It is a known fact 
