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[1] 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;[2] but in the Tertiary formation we have abundant stems and leaves, and fruits, derived from Palms.[3]
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.[4] 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 Œningen. 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
