. The testimony of the rocks; . nce ;but it would be certainly a curious circumstance should it be found thatthis graceful family, first ushered into being some time in the later Palaeo-zoic periods, was withdrawn from creation during ages of theearths history, to be again introduced in greatly more than the earlier pro-portions during the Tertiaiy and recent periods. HISTORY OF PLANTS. 73 flora; and not until the overlying Cretaceous System isushered in do we find leaves in any considerable quantitydecidedly of this high family; nor until we enter into theearlier Tertiaries do we s
. The testimony of the rocks; . nce ;but it would be certainly a curious circumstance should it be found thatthis graceful family, first ushered into being some time in the later Palaeo-zoic periods, was withdrawn from creation during ages of theearths history, to be again introduced in greatly more than the earlier pro-portions during the Tertiaiy and recent periods. HISTORY OF PLANTS. 73 flora; and not until the overlying Cretaceous System isushered in do we find leaves in any considerable quantitydecidedly of this high family; nor until we enter into theearlier Tertiaries do we succeed in detecting a true dicoty-ledonous tree. On such an amount of observation is thisorder of succession determined,— though the evidence is,of course, mainly negative,— that when, some eight or tenyears ago, Dr. John Wilson, the learned Free Churchmissionary to the Parsees of India, submitted to me speci-mens of fossil woods which he had picked up in the EgyptianDesert, in order that I might if possible determine their. ACER TRILOBATUM.* (Miocene of (Eningen.) age, I told him, ere yet the optical lapidary had preparedthem for examination, that if they exhibited the coniferous * Leaf of a tree allied to the maple. 74 THE PAL^ONTOLOGICAL structure, they might belong to any geologic period from thetimes of the Lower Old Red Sandstone downwards; butthat if they manifested in their tissue the dicotyledonouscharacter, they could not be older than the times of theTertiary. On submitting them in thin slices to the micro-scope, they were found to exhibit the peculiar dicotyledonous Fig. 42.
Size: 1371px × 1824px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookpublish, booksubjectcreation
