The Cupanioides, among the Sapindacese; the Cucumites, among the Cucurbitacese (species analogous to our bryony), climb the trunks of great trees, and hang in festoons of aerial garlands from their branches. The Ferns were still represented by the genera Pecopteris, by the Tceniopteris, Asplenium, Folypodium. Of the mosses, some Hcpaticas formed a humble but elegant and lively vegetation alongside the terrestrial and frequently ligneous plants which we have noted. Equiseta and Charce. would still grow in marshy places and on the borders of rivers and ponds.

It is not without some surprise that we observe here certain plants of our own epoch, which seem to have had the privilege of ornamenting the greater watercourses. Among these we may mention the Water Caltrop, Trapa natans, whose fine rosettes of green and dentated leaves float so gracefully in ornamental ponds, supported by their spindle-shaped petioles, its fruit a hard coriaceous nut, with four horny spines, known in France as water-chestnuts, which enclose a farinaceous grain not unpleasant to the taste; the pond-weed, Potamogeton, whose leaves form thick tufts of green, affording food and shelter to the fishes; Nympheacea, which spread beside their large round and hollow leaves, so admirably adapted for

3l6 THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE,

floating on the water, now the deep-yellow flowers of the Nenuphar^ now the pure white flowers of the Nymphceea. Listen to Lecoq, as he describes the vegetation of the period:—:" The Lower Tertiary period," he says, " constantly reminds us of the tropical landscapes of the present epoch, in localities where water and heat together impress on vegetation a power and majesty unknown in our climates. The Algae, which have already been observed in the marine waters at the close of the Cretaceous period, represented themselves under still more varied forms, in the earlier Tertiary deposits, when they have been formed in the sea. Hepaticas and Mosses grew in the more humid places; many pretty Ferns, as Pecopteris, Tcsniopteris,and the Equisetum stellare (Pomel) vegetated in cool and humid 1 places. The fresh waters are crowded with Naiades^ Ckara, Po-tainogeton, Caidi7iites, with Zosierites, and with Halochloris. Their leaves, floating or submerged, like those of our aquatic plants, concealed legions of Molluscs whose remains have also reached us. *' Great numbers of Conifers lived during this period. M. Brongniart enumerates forty-one different species, which, for the most part, remind us of living forms with which we are familiar — of Pines, Cypresses, Thuyas, Junipers, Firs, Yews, and Ephedra. Palms mingled ■with these groups of evergreen trees; the Flabellaria Parisiensis of Brongniart, F. raphifolia of Sternberg, F. maxima of Unger; and some Palmacites, raised their widely-spreading crowns near the magnificent Hightea; Malvaceae, or Mallotvs, doubtless arborescent, as many among them, natives of very hot climates, are in our days. " Creeping plants, such as the C^icwniies variabilis (Brongn.), and the numerous species of Cupanioides — the one belonging to the Cucurbitaceae, and the other to the Sapindaceae — twined their slender stems round the trunks, doubtless ligneous, of various Leguminaceae. " The family of Betulaceae of the order Cupuliferae show the form, then new, of Querctis, the Oak; the Juglandeae, and Ulmaceae mingle with the Proteaceae, now limited to the southern hemisphere. Deritiato-phyllites, preserved in amber, seem to have belonged to the family ot the Ericineae, and Tropa Aretiirce. of Unger, of the group CEnothereae, floated on the shallow waters in which grew the Chara and the Potamogetoii. " This numerous flora comprises more than 200 known species, of which 143 belonged to the Dicotyledons, thirty-three to the Monocotyledons, and thirty-three to the Cryptogams.

"Trees predominate here as in the preceding period, but the great numbers of aquatic plants of the period are quite in accordance with the geological facts, which show that the continents and

islands were intersected by extensive lakes and inland seas, while vast marine bays and arms of the sea penetrated deeply into the land."It is moreover a peculiarity of this period that the whole of Europe comprehended a great number of those plants which are now

Fig. 149.— Branch of Eucalyptus restored.

confined to Australasia, and which give so strange an aspect to that country, which seems, in its vegetation, as in its animals, to have preserved in its warm latitudes the last vestiges of the organic creations peculiar to the primitive world. As a type of dicotyledonous trees of the epoch, we present here a restored branch of Eucalyptus (Fig. 149), with its flowers. All the family of the Pro-

3i8 THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.

teacese, which comprehends the Banksta, the Hakea, \hQ Gerilea protea, existed in Europe during the Tertiary period. The family of

Fig. 150.— Fruit-branch of Banksia restored.

Mimosas, com.prising the Acacia and Inga^ which in our age are only natives of the southern hemisphere, abounded in Europe during the same geological period. A branch of Banksia^ with its fructification, taken from impressions discovered in rocks of the period, is

represented in Fig. 150 — it is different from any species of Banksia living in our days. Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, Insects, and Molluscs, form the terrestrial fauna of the Eocene period. In the waters of the lakes, whose surfaces are deeply ploughed by the passage of large Pelicans, lived Molluscs of varied forms, as Fhysa, Liiimcea^ Plaiiorbis; and Turtles swam about, as Trionyx and the Eviides. Snipes made their retreat among the reeds which gi-ew on the shore; sea-gulls skimmed the surface of the waters or ran upon the sands; owls hid themselves in the cavernous trunks of old trees; gigantic buzzards hovered in the air, watching for their prey; while heavy crocodiles slowly dragged their unwieldy bodies through the high marshy grasses. All these terrestrial animals have been discovered in England or in France, alongside the overthrown trunks of palm-trees. The temperature of these countries was then much higher than it is now. The Mammals which lived under the latitudes of Paris and London are only found now in the Warmest countries of the globe.

The Pachyderms (from the Greek to-xws, thick, Upixa, skiii) seem to have been amongst the earliest Mammals which appeared in the Eocene period, and they held the first rank from their importance in number of species as well as in size. Let us pause an instant over these Pachyderms. Their predominance over other fossil Mammals, which exceed considerably the number now living, is a fact much insisted on by Cuvier. Among them were a great number of intermediate forms, which we seek for in vain in existing genera. In fact, the Pachyderms are separated, in our days, by intervals of greater extent than we find in any other mammalian genera; and it is very curious to discover among the animals of the ancient world the broken link which connects the chain of these beings, which have for their great tomb the plaster-quarries of Paris, Montmartre and Pantin being their latest refuge.

Each block taken from those quarries encloses some fragment of a bone of these Mammals; and how many millions of these bones had been destroyed before attention was directed to the subject! The PalcBotherium and the Anoplotheriuin were the first of these animals which Cuvier restored; and subsequent discoveries of other fragments of the same animals have only served to confirm what the genius of the great naturalist divined. His studies in the quarries of Montmartre gave the signal, as they became the model, for similar researches and restorations of the animals of the ancient world, all over Europe — researches which, in our age, have drawn geology

THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.

320 from the state of infancy in which it languished, in spite of the magnificent and persevering labours of Steno, Werner, Hutton, and Saussure. The Paloeotherium^ Anoplotherium^ and Xiphodon were herbivorous animals, which must have lived in great herds. They appear to have been intermediate, according to their organisation, between the

Fig. 151. — Palaeotherium magnum restored.

Rhinoceros, the Horse, and the Tapir. There seem to have existed many species of them, of very different sizes. After the labours of Cuvier, nothing is easier than to represent the PalcBotherium as it lived: the nose terminating in a muscular fleshy trunk, or rather snout, somewhat like that of the Tapir; the eye small, and displaying little intelligence; the head enormously large; the body squat, thick, and short; the legs short and very stout \ the feet supported by three toes, enclosed in a hoof; the size, that of a large horse. Such was

THE EOCENE PERIOD.

the great Palaeotherium, peaceful flocks of which must have inhabited the valleys of the plateau which surrounds the ancient basin of Paris; in the lacustrine formations of Orleans and Argenton; in the Tertiary formations of Issil and Puy-en-Velay, in the department of the Gironde; in the Tertiary formations near Rome; and in the321 beds of limestone* at the quarries of Binsted, in the Isle of Wight.

Fig. 152. — Skull of Palaeotherium magnum.

Fig. 151 represents the great Palaeotherium, after the design, in outline, given by Cuvierin his work on fossil bones.

The discovery and re-arrangement of these and other forms, now swept from the face of the globe, are the noblest triumphs of the great French zoologist, who gathered them, as we have seen, from heaps of confused fragments, huddled together pell-mell, comprising the bones of a great many species of animals of a former age of the world, all unknown within the historic period. The generic characters of Palaeotherium give them forty-four teeth, namely, twelve mola7'Sj two canines, and twenty-eight others, three toes, a short proboscis, for the attachment of which the bones of the nose were shortened, as represented in Fig. 153, leaving a deep notch below them. The molar teeth bear considerable resemblance to those of the Rhinoceros. In the structure of that part of the skull intended to support the short

This limestone belongs to the Bembridge beds, and forms part of the FluviomarineH. W, scries.Bristow. See '* Survey Memoir on the Geology of the Isle of Wight," by V

Fig. 152. — Skull of Palaeotherium magnum.

Fig. 153.—Skeletons of the Palaotherium magnum (a) and minimum (4) restored. proboscis, and in the feet, the animal seems to have resembled the Tapir. “The geological place of the extinct Paleotherium seems to have been in the first great fresh-water formation of the Eocene period, where it is chiefly found with its allies, of which several species have been found and identified by Cuvier. Dr. Buckland is not singular in thinking that they lived and died on the margins of lakes and rivers, as the Rhinoceros and Tapir do now. Heisalso of opinion that some retired into the water to die, and that the dead carcases of others may have been drifted into the deeper parts in seasons of flood. The Palaotherium varied greatly in size, some species being as large as the Rhinoceros, while others ranged between the size of the Horse and that of a Hog or a2 Roe. The smaller Paleotherium resembled * the Tapir. Less in size than a Goat, with slim and light legs, it must have been very common in the north of France, where it would browse on the grass of the wild prairies. Another species. the £. minimum, scarcely exceeded the Hare in size, and it probably had all the lightness and agility of that animal. It lived among the bushy thickets of the environs of Paris, in Auvergne, and elsewhere.

Page 48 of 79