Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/370

 366 in trees from the Carboniferous series of Britain. That of ordinary Pines occurs in wood from the Coal formation of Nova Scotia and New Holland.

The same ordinary structure of Pines predominates in the fossil wood of the Lias at Whitby; trunks of Araucarias also are found there in the same Lias; and branches, with the leaves still adhering to them, in the Lias at Lyme Regis.

Professor Lindley justly remarks that it is an important fact, that at the period of the deposite of the Lias, the vegetation was similar to that of the Southern Hemisphere, not alone in the single fact of the presence of Cycadeæ, but that the Pines were also of the nature of species now found only to the south of the Equator. Of the four recent species of Araucaria at present known, one is found on the east coast of New Holland, another in Norfolk Island, a third in Brazil, and the fourth in Chili. (Foss. Flora, vol. ii. p. 21.)

Whatever result may follow from future investigations, our present information shows that the largest and most perfect fossil Coniferæ, which have been as yet sufficiently examined from the Coal formation and the Lias, are referable either to the genus Pinus, or Araucaria, and that both