Chapter 13

[EV]See a memoir and map by Prof. Hall, “Reports of the Regents of New York,” 1874-'75.

[EW]It seems certain that the faunæ of the old limestones, like the Trenton, Niagara, Lower Helderberg, and Corniferous, belong to warm and sheltered sea areas, and that those rich in graptolites and trilobites, enclosed in muddy sediments, belong to the colder arctic waters. Such arctic faunæ are those of the Quebec group and of the Utica shale, and to some extent that of the Hamilton group.

Lyell’s theory on this subject has, I think, in some recent publications, been somewhat misapprehended. It is true that he stated hypothetically two contrasted conditions of distribution, in one of which all the land was equatorial, in another all polar; but he did not suppose that these conditions had actually occurred; and even in his earlier editions, before the recent discoveries and discussions as to ocean currents, he was always careful to attach due value to these in connection with subsidences and elevations.[EX]In his later editions he introduced more full references to current action, and also stated Croll’s theory, but still maintained the validity of his original conclusions.

[EX]See “Principles of Geology,” edition of 1840, chapter vii.

The sufficiency of this Lyellian theory to account for the facts, in so far as plants are concerned, may, I think, be inferred from the course of the isothermal lines at present. The south end of Greenland is on the latitude of Christiania in Norway on the one hand, and of Fort Liard in the Peace River region on the other; and while Greenland is clad in ice and snow, wheat and other grains, and the ordinary trees of temperate climates, grow at the latter places,[EY]It is evident, therefore, that only exceptionally unfavourable circumstances prevent the Greenland area from still possessing a temperate flora, and these unfavourable circumstances possibly tell even on the localities with which we have compared it. Further, the mouth of the McKenzie River is in the same latitude withDisco, near which are some of the most celebrated localities of fossil Cretaceous and Tertiary plants. Yet the mouth of the McKenzie River enjoys a much more favourable climate and has a much more abundant flora than Disco. If north Greenland were submerged, and low land reaching to the south terminated at Disco, and if from any cause either the cold currents of Baffin’s Bay were arrested, or additional warm water thrown into the North Atlantic by the Gulf Stream, there is nothing to prevent a mean temperature of 45° Fahr. from prevailing at Disco; and the estimate ordinarily formed of the requirements of its extinct floras is 50°,[EZ]which is probably above rather than below the actual temperature required.

[EY]See “Macoun’s Report,” “Geological Survey of Canada,” and Richardson’s “Boat Voyage.”

[EZ]Heer. See, also, papers by Prof. Haughton and by Gardner in “Nature” for 1878.

Since, then, geological facts assure us of mutations of the continents much greater than those apparently required to account for the changes of climate implied in the existence of the ancient arctic floras, it does not seem absolutely necessary to invoke any others.[FA]If, however, there are other true causes which might either aid or counteract those above referred to, it may be well to consider them.

[FA]Sir William Thomson, “Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow,” February 22, 1878.

Mr. Croll has, in his valuable work “Climate and Time” and in various memoirs, brought forward an ingenious astronomical theory to account for changes of climate. This theory, as stated by himself in a recent paper,[FB]is that when the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit is at a high value, and the northern winter solstice is in perihelion, agencies are brought into operation which make the southeast trade-winds stronger than the northeast, and compel them to blow over upon the northernhemisphere as far as the Tropic of Cancer. The result is that all the great equatorial currents of the ocean are impelled into the northern hemisphere, which thus, in consequence of the immense accumulation of warm water, has its temperature raised, so that ice and snow must to a great extent disappear from the arctic regions. In the prevalence of the converse conditions, the arctic zone becomes clad in ice, and the southern has its temperature raised.

[FB]“Cataclysmic Theories of Geological Climate,” “Geological Magazine,” May, 1878.

At the same time, according to Croll’s calculations, the accumulation of ice on either pole would tend, by shifting the earth’s centre of gravity, to raise the level of the ocean and submerge the land on the colder hemisphere. Thus a submergence of land would coincide with a cold condition, and emergence with increasing warmth. Facts already referred to, however, show that this has not always been the case, but that in many cases submergence was accompanied with the influx of warm equatorial waters and a raised temperature, this apparently depending on the question of local distribution of land and water; and this in its turn being regulated not always by mere shifting of the centre of gravity, but by foldings occasioned by contraction, by equatorial subsidences resulting from the retardation of the earth’s rotation, and by the excess of material abstracted by ice and frost from the arctic regions, and drifted southward along the lines of arctic currents. This drifting must in all geological times have greatly exceeded, as it certainly does at present, the denudation caused by atmospheric action at the equator, and must have tended to increase the disposition to equatorial collapse occasioned by retardation of rotation.[FC]

[FC]Croll, in “Climate and Time,” and in a note read before the British Association in 1876, takes an opposite view; but this is clearly contrary to the facts of sedimentation, which show a steady movement ofdébristoward the south and southwest.

While such considerations as those above referred totend to reduce the practical importance of Mr. Croll’s theory., on the other hand they tend to remove one of the greatest objections against it—namely, that founded on the necessity of supposing that glacial periods recur with astronomical regularity in geological time. They cannot do so if dependent on other causes inherent in the earth itself, and producing important movements of its crust.

The third great cause of warmer climates in the past is the larger proportion of carbon dioxide, or carbonic-acid gas, in the atmosphere in early geological times, as proved by the immense amount of carbon now sealed up in limestone and coal, and which must at one time have been in the air. It has been shown that a very small additional quantity of this substance would so obstruct radiation of heat from the earth as to act almost like a glass roof. If, however, the quantity of carbonic acid, great at first, was slowly and regularly removed, even if, as suggested by Hunt, small additional supplies were gradually added from space, this cause could have affected only the very oldest floras. But it is known that some comets and meteorites contain carbonaceous matter, and this allows us to suppose that accessions of carbon may have been communicated at irregular intervals. If so, there may have been cycles of greater and less abundance of this substance, and an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide might at one and the same time afford warmth and abundance of food to plants.

It thus appears that the causes of ancient vicissitudes of climate are somewhat complex, and when two or more of them happened to coincide very extreme changes might result, having most important bearings on the distribution of plants.

This may help us to deal with the peculiarities of the great Glacial age, which may have been rendered exceptionally severe by the combination of several of the causes of refrigeration. We must not suppose, however, thatthe views of those extreme glacialists who suppose continental ice-caps reaching half way to the equator are borne out by facts. In truth, the ice accumulating round the pole must have been surrounded by water, and there must have been tree-clad islands in the midst of the icy seas, even in the time of greatest refrigeration. This is proved by the fact that, in the Leda clay of eastern Canada, which belongs to the time of greatest submergence, and whose fossil shells show sea-water almost at the freezing-point, there are leaves of poplars and other plants which must have been drifted from neighbouring shores. Similar remains occur in clays of like origin in the basin of the great lakes and in the West. These have been called “interglacial,” but there is no evidence to prove that they are not truly glacial. Thus, while we need not suppose that plants existed within the Arctic circle in the Glacial age, we have evidence that those of the cold temperate and sub-arctic zones continued to exist pretty far north. At the same time the warm temperate flora would be driven to the south, except where sustained in insular spots warmed by the equatorial currents. It would return northward on the re-elevation of the land and the renewal of warmth.

If, however, our modern flora is thus one that has returned from the south, this would account for its poverty in species as compared with those of the early Tertiary. Groups of plants descending from the north have been rich and varied. Returning from the south they are like the shattered remains of a beaten army. This, at least, has been the case with such retreating floras as those of the Lower Carboniferous, the Permian, and the Jurassic, and possibly that of the Lower Eocene of Europe.

The question of the supply of light to an arctic flora is much less difficult than some have imagined. The long summer day is in this respect a good substitute for a longer season of growth, while a copious covering ofwinter snow not only protects evergreen plants from those sudden alternations of temperature which are more destructive than intense frost, and prevents the frost from penetrating to their roots, but, by the ammonia which it absorbs, preserves their greenness. According to Dr. Brown, the Danish ladies of Disco long ago solved this problem.[FD]He informs us that they cultivate in their houses most of our garden flowers—as roses, fuchsias, and geraniums—showing that it is merely warmth and not light that is required to enable a sub-tropical flora to thrive in Greenland. Even in Canada, which has a flora richer in some respects than that of temperate Europe, growth is effectually arrested by cold for nearly six months, and though there is ample sunlight there is no vegetation. It is, indeed, not impossible that in the plans of the Creator the continuous summer sun of the arctic regions may have been made the means for the introduction, or at least for the rapid growth and multiplication, of new and more varied types of plants.

[FD]“Florula Discoana,” Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 1868.

Much, of course, remains to be known of the history of the old floras, whose fortunes I have endeavoured to sketch, and which seem to have been driven like shuttle-cocks from north to south, and from south to north, especially on the American continent, whose meridional extension seems to have given a field specially suited for such operations.

This great stretch of the western continent, from north to south, is also connected with the interesting fact that, when new floras are entering from the arctic regions, they appear earlier in America than in Europe, and that in times when old floras are retreating from the south old genera and species linger longer in America. Thus, in the Devonian and Cretaceous new forms of those periods appear in America long before they are recognizedin Europe, and in the modern epoch forms that would be regarded in Europe as Miocene still exist. Much confusion in reasoning as to the geological ages of the fossil floras has arisen from want of attention to this circumstance.

What we have learned respecting this wonderful history has served strangely to change some of our preconceived ideas. We must now be prepared to admit that an Eden can be planted even in Spitzbergen, that there are possibilities in this old earth of ours which its present condition does not reveal to us; that the present state of the world is by no means the best possible in relation to climate and vegetation; that there have been and might be again conditions which could convert the ice-clad arctic regions into blooming paradises, and which at the same time would moderate the fervent heat of the tropics. We are accustomed to say that nothing is impossible with God; but how little have we known of the gigantic possibilities which lie hidden under some of the most common of his natural laws!

These facts have naturally been made the occasion of speculations as to the spontaneous development of plants by processes of varietal derivation. It would, from this point of view, be a nice question to calculate how many revolutions of climate would suffice to evolve the first land-plant; what are the chances that such plant would be so dealt with by physical changes as to be preserved and nursed into a meagre flora like that of the Upper Silurian or the Jurassic; how many transportations to Greenland would suffice to promote such meagre flora into the rich and abundant forests of the Upper Cretaceous, and to people the earth with the exuberant vegetation of the early Tertiary. Such problems we may never be able to solve. Probably they admit of no solution, unless we invoke the action of an Almighty mind, operating through long ages, and correlating with boundless power and wisdom all the energies inherent in inorganic and organicnature. Even then we shall perhaps be able to comprehend only the means by which, after specific types have been created, they may, by the culture of their Maker, be “sported” into new varieties or subspecies, and thus fitted to exist under different conditions or to occupy higher places in the economy of nature.

Before venturing on such extreme speculations as some now current on questions of this kind, we would require to know the successive extinct floras as perfectly as those of the modern world, and to be able to ascertain to what extent each species can change either spontaneously or under the influence of struggle for existence or expansion under favourable conditions, and under arctic semi-annual days and nights, or the shorter days of the tropics. Such knowledge, if ever acquired, it may take ages of investigation to accumulate.

As to the origin and mode of introduction of successive floras, I am, for the reasons above stated, not disposed to dogmatise, or to adopt as final any existing theory of the development of the vegetable kingdom. Still, some laws regulating the progress of vegetable life may be recognised, and I propose to state these in connection with the Palæozoic floras, to which my own studies have chiefly related.

Fossil plants are almost proverbially uncertain with reference to their accurate determination, and have been regarded as of comparatively little utility in the decision of general questions of palæontology. This results principally from the fragmentary condition in which they have been studied, and from the fact that fragments of animal structures are more definite and instructive than corresponding portions of plants.

It is to be observed, however, that our knowledge of fossil plants becomes accurate in proportion to the extent to which we can carry the study of specimens in the beds in which they are preserved, so as to examine more perfectexamples than those usually to be found in museums. When structures are taken into the account, as well as external forms, we can also depend more confidently on our results. Further, the abundance of specimens to be obtained in particular beds often goes far to make up for their individual imperfection. The writer of these pages has been enabled to avail himself very fully of these advantages; and on this account, if on no other, feels entitled to speak with some authority on theoretical questions.

It is an additional encouragement to pursue the subject, that, when we can obtain definite information as to the successive floras of any region, we thereby learn much as to climate and vicissitudes in regard to the extent of land and water; and that, with reference to such points, the evidence of fossil plants, when properly studied, is, from the close relation of plants to those stations and climates, even more valuable than that of animal fossils.

It is necessary, however, that in pursuing such inquiries we should have some definite views as to the nature and permanence of specific forms, whether with reference to a single geological period or to successive periods; and I may be excused for stating here some general principles, which I think important for our guidance.

1. Botanists proceed on the assumption, vindicated by experience, that, within the period of human observation, species have not materially varied or passed into each other. We may make, for practical purposes, the same assumption with regard to any given geological period, and may hold that for each such period there are specific types which, for the time at least, are invariable.

2. When we inquire what constitutes a good species for any given period, we have reason to believe that many names in our lists represent merely varietal forms or erroneous determinations. This is the case even in the modern flora; and in fossil floras, through the poverty of specimens, their fragmentary condition, and various statesof preservation, it is still more likely to occur. Every revision of any group of fossils detects numerous synonyms, and of these many are incapable of detection without the comparison of large suites of specimens.

3. We may select from the flora of any geological period certain forms, which I shall callspecific types, which may for such period be regarded as unchanging. Having settled such types, we may compare them with similar forms in other periods, and such comparisons will not be vitiated by the uncertainty which arises from the comparison of so-called species which may, in many cases, be mere varietal forms, as distinguished from specific types. Our types may be founded on mere fragments, provided that these are of such a nature as to prove that they belong to distinct forms which cannot pass into each other, at least within the limits of one geological period.

4. When we compare the specific types of one period with those of another immediately precedent or subsequent, we shall find that some continue unchanged through long intervals of geological time, that others are represented by allied forms regarded either as varietal or specific, and as derived or otherwise, according to the view which we may entertain as to the permanence of species. On the other hand, we also find new types not rationally deducible on any theory of derivation from those known in other periods. Further, in comparing the types of a poor period with those of one rich in species, we may account for the appearance of new types in the latter by the deficiency of information as to the former; where many new types appear in the poorer period this conclusion seems less probable. For example, new types appearing in poor formations, like the Lower Erian and Lower Carboniferous, have greater significance than if they appeared in the Middle Erian or in the Coal Measures.

5. When specific types disappear without any known successors, under circumstances in which it seems unlikelythat we should have failed to discover their continuance, we may fairly assume that they have become extinct, at least locally; and where the field of observation is very extensive, as in the great coal-fields of Europe and America, we may esteem such extinction as practically general, at least for the northern hemisphere. When many specific types become extinct together, or in close succession, we may suppose that such extinction resulted from physical changes; but where single types disappear, under circumstances in which others of similar habit continue, we may not unreasonably conjecture that, as Pictet has argued in the case of animals, such types may have been in their own nature limited in duration, and may have died out without any external cause.

6. With regard to theintroductionof specific types we have not as yet a sufficient amount of information. Even if we freely admit that ordinary specific forms, as well as mere varieties, may result from derivation, this by no means excludes the idea of primitive specific types originating in some other way. Just as the chemist, after analysing all compounds and ascertaining all allotropic forms, arrives at length at certain elements not mutually transmutable or derivable, so the botanist and zoölogist must expect sooner or later to arrive at elementary specific types, which, if to be accounted for at all, must be explained on some principle distinct from that of derivation. The position of many modern biologists, in presence of this question, may be logically the same with that of the ancient alchemists with reference to the chemical elements, though the fallacy in the case of fossils may be of more difficult detection. Our business at present, in the prosecution of palæobotany, is to discover, if possible, what are elementary or original types, and, having found these, to enquire as to the law of their creation.

7. In prosecuting such questions geographical relations must be carefully considered. When the floras oftwo successive periods have existed in the same region, and under circumstances that render it probable that plants have continued to grow on the same or adjoining areas throughout these periods, the comparison becomes direct, and this is the case with the Erian and Carboniferous floras in northeastern America. But, when the areas of the two formations are widely separated in space as well as in time, any resemblances of facies that we may observe may have no connection whatever with an unbroken continuity of specific types.

I desire, however, under this head, to affirm my conviction that, with reference to the Erian and Carboniferous floras of North America and of Europe, the doctrine of “homotaxis,” as distinct from actual contemporaneity, has no place. The succession of formations in the Palæozoic period evidences a similar series of physical phenomena on the grandest scale throughout the northern hemisphere. The succession of marine animals implies the continuity of the sea-bottoms on which they lived. The headquarters of the Erian flora in America and Europe must have been in connected or adjoining areas in the North Atlantic. The similarity of the Carboniferous flora on the two sides of the Atlantic, and the great number of identical species, proves a still closer connection in that period. These coincidences are too extensive and too frequently repeated to be the result of any accident of similar sequence at different times, and this more especially as they extend to the more minute differences in the features of each period, as, for instance, the floras of the Lower and Upper Devonian, and of the Lower, Middle, and Upper Carboniferous.

8. Another geographical question is that which relates to centres of dispersion. In times of slow subsidence of extensive areas, the plants inhabiting such areas must be narrowed in their range and often separated from one another in detached spots, while, at the same time, importantclimatal changes must also occur. On the re-emergence of the land such of these species as remained would again extend themselves over their former areas of distribution, in so far as the new climatal and other conditions would permit. We would naturally suppose that the first of the above processes would tend to the elimination of varieties, the second, to their increase; but, on the other I hand, the breaking up of a continental flora into that of distinct islets, and the crowding together of many forms, might be a process fertile in the production of some varieties if fatal to others.

Further, it is possible that these changes of subsidence may have some connection with the introduction, as well as with the extinction, even of specific types. It is certain, at least, in the case of land-plants, that such types come in most plentifully immediately after elevation, though they are most abundantly preserved in periods of slow subsidence. I do not mean, however, that this connection is one of cause and effect; there are, indeed, indications that it is not so. One of these is, that in some cases the enlargement of the area of the land seems to be as injurious to terrestrial species as its diminution.

9. Another point on which I have already insisted, and which has been found to apply to the Tertiary as well as to the Palæozoic floras, is the appearance of new types within the arctic and boreal areas, and their migration southward. Periods in which the existence of northern land coincided with a general warm temperature of the northern hemisphere seem to have been those most favourable to the introduction of new forms of land-plants. Hence, there has been throughout geological time a general movement of new floras from the Palæarctic and Nearctic regions to the southward.

Applying the above considerations to the Erian and Carboniferous floras of North America, we obtain some data which may guide us in arriving at general conclusions.The Erian flora is comparatively poor, and its types are in the main similar to those of the Carboniferous. Of these types a few only reappear in the middle coal-formation under identical forms; a great number appear under allied forms; some altogether disappear. The Erian flora of New Brunswick and Maine occurs side by side with the Carboniferous of the same region; so does the Erian of New York and Pennsylvania with the Carboniferous of those States. Thus we have data for the comparison of successive floras in the same region. In the Canadian region we have, indeed, in direct sequence, the floras of the Upper Silurian, the Lower, Middle, and Upper Erian, and the Lower, Middle, and Upper Carboniferous, all more or less distinct from each other, and affording an admirable series for comparison in a region whose geographical features are very broadly marked. All these floras are composed in great part of similar types, and probably do not indicate very dissimilar general physical conditions, but they are separated from each other by the great subsidences of the Corniferous limestone and the Lower Carboniferous limestone, and by the local but intense subterranean action which has altered and disturbed the Erian beds toward the close of that period. Still, these changes were not universal. The Corniferous limestone is absent in Gaspé, and probably in New Brunswick, where, consequently, the Erian flora could continue undisturbed during that long period. The Carboniferous limestone is absent from the slopes of the Appalachians in Pennsylvania, where a retreat may have been afforded to the Upper Erian and Lower Carboniferous floras. The disturbances at the close of the Erian were limited to those eastern regions where the great limestone-producing subsidences were unfelt, and, on the other hand, are absent in Ohio, where the subsidences and marine conditions were almost at a maximum.

Bearing in mind these peculiarities of the area in question, we may now group in a tabular form the distinct specific types recognised in the Erian system, indicating, at the same time, those which are represented by identical species in the Carboniferous, those represented by similar species of the same general type, and those not represented at all. For example,Calamites cannæformisextends as a species into the Carboniferous;Asterophyllites latifoliadoes not so extend, but is represented by closely allied species of the same type;Nematophytondisappears altogether before we reach the Carboniferous.

Table of Erian and Carboniferous Specific Types.

Of the above forms, fifty-one in all, found in the Erian of eastern America, all, except the last four, are certainly distinct specific types. Of these only four reappear in the Carboniferous under identical species, but no less than twenty-six reappear under representative or allied forms, some at least of which a derivationist might claim as modified descendants. On the other hand, nearly one half of the Devonian types are unknown in the Carboniferous, while there remain a very large number of Carboniferous types not accounted for by anything known in the Devonian. Further, a very poor flora, including only two or three types, is the predecessor of the Erian flora in the Upper Silurian, and the flora again becomes poor in the Upper Devonian and Lower Carboniferous. Every new species discovered must more or less modify the above statements, and the whole Erian flora of America, as well as the Carboniferous, requires a thorough comparison with that of Europe before general conclusions can be safely drawn. In the mean time I may indicate the direction in which the facts seem to point by the following general statements:

1. Some of the forms reckoned as specific in the Devonian and Carboniferous may be really derivative races. There are indications that such races may have originated in one or more of the following ways: (1) By a natural tendency in synthetic types to become specialised in the direction of one or other of their constituent elements. In this way such plants asArthrostigmaandPsilophytonmay have assumed new varietal forms. (2) By embryonic retardation or acceleration,[FE]whereby certain species may have had their maturity advanced or postponed, thus giving them various grades of perfection in reproduction and complexity of structure. The fact that so many Erian and Carboniferous plants seem to be on the confinesof the groups of Acrogens and Gymnosperms may be supposed favourable to such exchanges. (3) The contraction and breaking up of floras, as occurred in the Middle Erian and Lower Carboniferous, may have been eminently favourable to the production of such varietal forms as would result from what has been called the “struggle for existence.” (4) The elevation of a great expanse of new land at the close of the Middle Erian and the beginning of the coal period would, by permitting the extension of species over wide areas and fertile soils, and by removing the pressure previously existing, be eminently favourable to the production of new, and especially of improved, varieties.

[FE]In the manner illustrated by Hyatt and Cope.

2. Whatever importance we may attach to the above supposed causes of change, we still require to account for the origin of our specific types. This may forever elude our observation, but we may at least hope to ascertain the external conditions favourable to their production. In order to attain even to this it will be necessary to inquire critically, with reference to every acknowledged species, what its claims to distinctness are, so that we may be enabled to distinguish specific types from mere varieties. Having attained to some certainty in this, we may be prepared to inquire whether the conditions favourable to the appearance of new varieties were also those favourable to the creation of new types, or the reverse—whether these conditions were those of compression or expansion, or to what extent the appearance of new types may be independent of any external conditions, other than those absolutely necessary for their existence. I am not without hope that the further study of fossil plants may enable us thus to approach to a comprehension of the laws of the creation, as distinguished from those of the continued existence of species.

3. In the present state of our knowledge we have no good ground either to limit the number of specific typesbeyond what a fair study of our material may warrant, or to infer that such primitive types must necessarily have been of low grade, or that progress in varietal forms has always been upward. The occurrence of such an advanced and specialised type as that ofDadoxylonin the Middle Devonian should guard us against these errors. The creative process may have been applicable to the highest as well as to the lowest forms, and subsequent deviations must have included degradation as well as elevation. I can conceive nothing more unreasonable than the statement sometimes made that it is illogical or even absurd to suppose that highly organised beings could have been produced except by derivation from previously existing organisms. This is begging the whole question at issue, depriving science of a noble department of inquiry on which it has as yet barely entered, and anticipating by unwarranted assertions conclusions which may perhaps suddenly dawn upon us through the inspiration of some great intellect, or may for generations to come baffle the united exertions of all the earnest promoters of natural science. Our present attitude should not be that of dogmatists, but that of patient workers content to labour for a harvest of grand generalisations which may not come till we have passed away, but which, if we are earnest and true to Nature and its Creator, may reward even some of us.

Within the human period great changes of distribution of plants have occurred, chiefly through the agency of man himself, and we have had ample evidence that plants are able to establish themselves and prosper in climates and conditions to which unaided they could not have transported themselves, as, for instance, in the case of European weeds naturalised in Australia and New Zealand. There is, however, no reason to believe that any specific change has occurred to any plant within the Pleistocene or modern period.

In a recent address, delivered to the biological section of the British Association, Mr. Carruthers has discussed this question, and has shown that the earliest vegetable specimens described by Dr. Schweinfurth from the Egyptian tombs present no appearance of change. This fact appears also in the leaves and other organs of plants preserved in the nodules in the Pleistocene clays of the Ottawa, and in specimens of similar age found in various places in Britain and the continent of Europe.[FF]

[FF]“Proceedings British Association,” 1886, “Pleistocene Plants of Canada,” Canadian Naturalist, 1866.

The difficulties attending the ordinary theories of evolution as applied to plants have been well set forth by the same able botanist in his “Presidential Address to the Geological Association in 1877,” a paper which deserves careful study. One of his illustrations is that ancient willow,Salix polaris, referred to in a previous chapter, which now lives in the arctic regions, and is found fossil in the Pleistocene beds at Cromer and at Bovey Tracey.

He notes the fact that the genusSalixis a very variable one, including 19 subgeneric groups and 160 species, with no less than 222 varieties and 70 hybrids.Salix polarisbelongs to a subgeneric group containing 29 species, which are arranged in four sections, that to whichS. polarisbelongs containing six species. Now it is easy to construct a theoretical phylogeny of the derivation of the willows from a supposed ancestral source, but when we take our littleS. polariswe find that this one twig of our ancestral tree takes us back without change to the Glacial period. The six species would take us still farther, and the sections, sub-genera, and genus at the same rate would require an incalculable amount of past time. He concludes the inquiry in the following terms:

"But when we have reached the branch representing the generic form we have made but little progress in the phylogenesis ofSalix. WithPopulusthis genus forms a small order, Salicineæ, The two genera are closely allied, yet separated by well-marked characters; it is not, however, difficult to conceive of both having sprung from a generalised form. But there is no record of such a form. The two genera appear together among the earliest known dicotyledons, the willows being represented by six and the poplars by nine species. The ordinal form, if it ever existed, must necessarily be much older than the period of the Upper Cretaceous rocks, that is, than the period to which the earliest known dicotyledons belong.

“The Salicineæ are related to five other natural orders, in all of which the apetalous flowers are arranged in catkins. These different though allied orders must be led up by small modifications to a generalised amentiferous type, and thereafter the various groups of apetalous plants by innumerable eliminations of differentiating characters until the primitive form of the apetalous plant is reached. Beyond this the uncurbed imagination will have more active work in bridging over the gap between Angiosperms and Gymnosperms, in finding the intermediate forms that led up to the vascular cryptogams, and on through the cellular plants to the primordial germ. Every step in this phylogenetic tree must be imagined. The earliest dicotyledon takes us not a step farther back in the phylogenetic history ofSalixthan that supplied by existing vegetation. All beyond the testimony of our living willows is pure imagination, unsupported by a single fact. So that here, also, the evidence is against evolution, and there is none in favour of it.”

It is easy to see that similar difficulties beset every attempt to trace the development of plants on the principle of slow and gradual evolution, and we are drivenback on the theory of periods of rapid origin, as we have already seen suggested by Saporta in the case of the Cretaceous dicotyledons. Such abrupt and plentiful introduction of species over large areas at the same time, by whatever cause effected—and we are at present quite ignorant of any secondary causes—becomes in effect something not unlike the old and familiar idea of creation. Science must indeed always be baffled by questions of ultimate origin, and, however far it may be able to trace the chain of secondary causation and development, must at length find itself in the presence of the great Creative Mind, who is “before all things and in whom all things consist.”

APPENDIX.

I.—COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE SUCCESSIVE PALÆOZOICFLORAS OF NORTHEASTERN AMERICA ANDGREAT BRITAIN.

Ineastern Canada there is a very complete series of fossil plants, extending from the Silurian to the Permian, and intermediate in its species between the floras of interior America and of Europe. I may use this succession, mainly worked out by myself,[FG]to summarise the various Palæozoic floras and sub-floras, in order to give a condensed view of this portion of the history of the vegetable kingdom, and to direct attention to the important fact, too often overlooked, that there is a definite succession of fossil plants as well as of animals, and that this is important as a means of determining geological horizons. A British list for comparison has been kindly prepared for me by Mr. R. Kidston, F. Gr. S. For lists referring to the western and southern portions of America, I may refer to the reports of Lesquereux and Fontaine and White.[FH]

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