Although this peculiarity of the structure
of stomata is also found in plants of widely distant orders, it is, on the
whole, but rarely met with, and being thus observed to characterise a foliage
previously suspected to be proteaceous, it adds to the probability that the
botanical evidence had been correctly interpreted.
An occasional admixture at Aix-la-Chapelle of Fucoids and Zosterites attests,
like the shells, the presence of salt-water. Of insects, Dr. Debey has obtained
about ten species of the families Curculionidae and Carabidae.
The resemblance of the flora of Aix-la-Chapelle to the tertiary and living
floras in the proportional number of dicotyledonous angiosperms as compared to
the gymnogens, is a subject of no small theoretical interest, because we can now
affirm that these Aix plants flourished before the rich reptilian fauna of the
secondary rocks had ceased to exist. The Ichthyosaurus, Pterodactyl, and
Mosasaurus were of coeval date with the oak, the walnut, and the fig.
Speculations have often been hazarded respecting a connection between the rarity
of Exogens in the older rocks and a peculiar state of the atmosphere.
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