more frequent occurrence of similar remains of this interesting family, in the Tertiary formations of France, Switzerland, and England, whilst they are comparatively rare in strata of the Secondary and Transition series, suggests the propriety of consigning to this part of our subject the few observations we have to make on their history.

The existing family of Palms* is supposed to consist of nearly a thousand species, of which the greater number are limited to peculiar regions of the torrid Zone. If we look to the geological history of this large and beautiful family, we shall find that although it was called into existence, together with the most early vegetable forms of the Transition period, it presents very few species in the Coal formation (See Lindley's Foss. Flora, No. XV, Pl. 142, P. 163,) and occurs sparingly in the Secondary series;† but in the Tertiary formation we have abundant stems and leaves, and fruits, derived from Palms.‡

Fossil Trunks of Palm Trees.

The fossil stems of Palms are referable to many species; they occur beautifully silicified in the Tertiary deposites of Hungary, and in the Calcaire Grossier of Paris.§ Trunks

In Oct. 1835, I saw in the Museum at Leyden, a living Salamander three feet long, the first ever brought alive to Europe, of a species nearly allied to the fossil Salamander of Eningen. This animal was brought by Dr. Siebold from a lake within the crater of an extinct volcano, on a high mountain in Japan. It fed greedily on small fishes, and frequently cast its epidermis.

* See Pl. 1, Figs. 66, 67. 68.

† See Sprengel's Account of Endogenites Palmacites in New red sandstone, near Chemnitz, (Halle, 1828.) and Cotta's Dendrolithen, (Dresden and Leipsig, 1832. Pl. ix, x.)

Eight species in the family of Palms are given in Ad. Brongniart's list of the fossils of the Tertiary Series.

§ Our figure Pl. 64, Fig. 2, represents the summit of a beautiful fossil Trunk in the Museum at Paris, allied to the family of Palms, and nearly four feet in circumference, from the lower region of the Calcaire Grossier at Vaillet near Soissons. M. Brongniart has applied to this fossil the

of Palms are also found in the Fresh-water formation of Mont Martre.*-It is stated, that at Liblar, near Cologne, they have been seen in a vertical position.† Beautifully silicified stems of Palm Trees abound in Antigua, and in India, and on the banks of the Irawadi, in the kingdom of Ava.

It is not surprising to find the remains of Palms in warm latitudes where plants of this family are now indigenous, as in Antigua or India; but their occurrence in the Tertiary formations of Europe, associated with the remains of Crocodiles and Tortoises, and with marine shells, nearly allied to forms which are at present found in seas of a warm temperature, seems to indicate that the climate of Europe during the Tertiary period, was warmer than it is at present.

Fossil Palm leaves.

We have seven known localities of fossil Palm leaves, in the Tertiary strata of France, Switzerland, and the Tyrol; and among them at least three species, of flabelliform leaves, all differing not only from that of the Chemaerops humilis, the only native palm of the South of Europe, but also from

name of Endogenites echinatus. The projecting bodies that surround it, like the foliage of a Corinthian Capital, are the persistent portions of fallen Petioles which remain adhering to the stem after the leaves themselves have fallen off. They have a dilated base embracing one-fourth or one-third of the stem; the form of these bases, and the disposition of their woody tissue in fasciculi or fibres, refer this fossil to some arborescent Monocotyledonous Tree allied to the Palms.

* Prostrate trunks of Palm trees of considerable size are found in the argillaceous marl beds above the Gypsum strata of the Paris basin, together with shells of Lymnea and Planorbis; as these Trunks occur here in freshwater deposites they cannot have been drifted by marine current from distant regions, but were probably natives of Europe, and of France.

It is not shown whether these Palm trees were drifted in this position, or are still standing in the spot whereon they grew like the Cycadites and Coniferæ in the Isle of Portland.

Every known living species.* These leaves are too well preserved to have endured transport by water from a distant region, and must apparently be referred to extinct species, which in the Tertiary period, were indigenous in Europe.

No pinnated Palm leaf has yet been found in the Tertiary Strata, although the number of these forms among existing palms, is more than double that of the flabelliform leaves.†

Fossil Fruits of Palms.

Many fossil fruits of the Tertiary period belong to the family of Palms, all of which, according to M. Ad. Brongniart, seem derived from Genera that have pinnated leaves. Several such fruits occur in the Tertiary clay of the Island of Sheppey; among which are the Date,‡ now peculiar to Africa and India; the Cocoa-nut,§ which grows universally within the tropics; the Bactris, which is limited to America; and the Areca, which is found only in Asia. Not one of these can be referred to any flabelliform palm. Fossil Cocoa-nuts occur also at Brussels, and at Liblar near Cologne, together with fruits of the Areca.

*The leaf represented in Pl. 64. fig. 1. is that of a flabelliform Palm (Palmacites Lamanonis,) from the Gypsum of Aix in Provence; similar leaves have been found in three other parts of France, near Amiens, Mans, and Angers, all in strata of the Tertiary epoch. Another species (Palmacites Parisiensis) has been found in the Calcaire Grossier, near Versailles (Cuvier and Brongniart, Geognosie des Environs de Paris, Pl. 8, fig. 1. E.) A third species of Palm leaf (Palmacites flabellatus) occurs in the Molasse of Switzerland, near Lausanne, and in the Lignite of Hæring, in Tyrol See Pl. 1, figs. 13. 66.

†The Date, Cocoa-nut Palm, and Areca are familiar examples of Palms having pinnated leaves. See Pl. 1. figs. 67. 68.

See Parkinson's Org. Rem. Vol. i. Pl. VI. fig. 4, 9.

§ See Parkinson's Org. Rem. Vol. i. Pl. VII. fig. 1-5. M. Brongniart says, these fruits are undoubtedly of the Genus Cocos, near to Cocos lapidea, of Gærtner.

Although all these fruits belong to Genera whose leaves are pinnated, no fossil pinnated Palm leaves (as we have just stated,) have yet been found in Europe. It seems therefore most likely, from the mode in which so large a number of miscellaneous fruits are crowded together in the Isle of Sheppey, mixed with marine shells and fragments of timber, almost always perforated by Teredines, that the fruits in question were drifted by marine currents from a warmer climate than that which Europe presented after the commencement of the Tertiary Epoch; in the same manner as tropical seeds and logs of mahogany are now drifted from the Gulf of Mexico to the Coasts of Norway and Ireland.

Besides the fruits of Palms, the Isle of Sheppey presents an assemblage of many hundred species of other fruits,* most of them apparently tropical; these could scarcely have been accumulated, as they are, without a single leaf of the tree on which they grew, and have been associated with drifted timber bored by Teredines, by any other means than

a sea-current.

We have no decisive information as to the number of species of these fossil fruits; they have been estimated at from six to seven hundred.† In the same clay with them are found great numbers of fossil Crustaceans, and also the remains of many fishes, and of Crocodiles, and aquatic Tortoises.

According to M. Ad. Brongniart, many of these have near relation to the aromatic fruits of the Amomum (cardomom,) they are triangular, much compressed, and umbilicated at the summit, which presents a small circular areola, apparently the cicatrix of an adherent calyx; within are three valves. A slight furrow passes along the middle of each plain surface, similar to that on the fruit of many scitamineous plants. These Sheppey fruits, however, cannot be identified with any known Genus of that Family, but approach so nearly to it, that Ad. Brongniart gives them the name of Amomocarpum.

† See Parkinson's Organic Remains, Vol. i. Pl. 6, 7. Jacob's Flora Favershamensis. And Dr. Parsons, in Phil. Trans. Lond. 1757, Vol. 50, page 396, Pl. XV. XVI. A collection of these fruits is preserved in the British Museum, another in the Museum at Canterbury, and a third in that of Mr. Bowerbank, in London.

As the drifted seeds that occur in Sheppey seem to have been collected by the action of marine currents, the history of European vegetation during the Tertiary period, must be sought for in those other remains of plants, whose state and circumstances show that they have grown at no great distance from the spot in which they are now found.*

Conclusion.

The following is a summary of what is yet known, respecting the varying conditions of the Flora of the three great periods of Geological history we have been considering.

The most characteristic distinctions between the vegetable remains of these periods are as follows. In the first period, the predominance of vascular Cryptogamic, and comparative rarity of Dicotyledonous plants. In the second, the approximation to equality of vascular Cryptogamic, and Dicotyledonous plants. In the third, the predominance of Dicotyledonous, and rarity of vascular. Cryptogamic plants. Among existing vegetables almost two-thirds are Dicotyledonous.

The Remains of Monocotyledonous plants occur, though sparingly, in each period of Geological formations.

The number of fossil plants as yet described is about five hundred; nearly three hundred of these are from strata of the Transition series; and almost entirely from the Coal formation. About one hundred are from strata of the Secondary series, and more than a hundred from formations of the

* The beautiful Amber, which is found on the eastern shores of England, and on the Coasts of Prussia and Sicily, and which is supposed to be fossil resin, is derived from beds of Lignite in Tertiary strata. Fragments of fossil gum were found near London in digging the tunnel through the London clay at Highgate.

The dicotyledonous plants of the Transition and Secondary formations present only that peculiar tribe of this class, which is made up of Cycadea and Coniferæ, viz. Gymnospermous Phanerogamiæ.