The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1914-07-04
Remarkable Flora of Early World

BY a count of the annual rings in
the trunk of one Of the giant Sc
quotas of California, it has been as
certained that nearly 5000 years, or
the major portion of recorded hui
man history, has passed across the
stage since that tree was a Seeding.
gagged by human achievement, it is a
fraction of time almost too small to
be measured when compared with
the remote geologic age during which
certain of the ancestors of the Cali
fornian giant tree were living along
our Atlantic coast. The ancient
vegetation which grew in South Caro-
lima and Georgia during Upper Gre
taceous and Eocene time-or, as geo.
logists state, at least several million
years ago-has been made the SUBJ
ject of an exhaustive investigation
which has just been published by the
United States geological survey as
Professional Paper "a. The earlier
of these fossil f1oras, that of the
Upper ~Cretaceous, embraces nearly
one hundred species of wholly ex-
tinct plants, and as the majority of
them are believed to have been trees
or shrubs, it is interesting to COM
pare them with the vegetation now
living in the same area.
In addition to the sequoit or big
thee now confined to the Pacific
coast, there were three kinds of
araucarias or Norfolk Island pines,
which at the present time live only
in South America and Australia; a
pine with the leaves in clusters of
three as in the living pitch pine.
and a number of cypress-like trees
which we're once widely spread owe
the world but are now extinct. There
was also a fan palm with very large
leaves, which was perhaps the remote
ancestor of the palmetto. Among
the %deciduous trees there were wax
berries (Myrica) of two kinds, wal
nuts, many willows with long, mar
row leaves, oaks of the type of the
living black oak, fig trees of many
kinds, and several magnolias. Among
the smaller trees or shrubs there
were soapberries (S%apindus), bitter
sweet, humac, laurels and cinnamons
nearest to forms now confined to the
Old World and three kinds of euca-
lyptus, the living representatives of
which are now native to Australia.
The remote ancestors of the persim-
mon were also present, as well as a
number of other kinds that are with
out vernacular m
From the careful study of this
ancient flora which has been preserv-
ed in fossil form in the rocks, it has
been possible to draw certain tenta-
tive though apparently reasonable
conclusions as to the conditions
which prevailed in South Carolina
and Georgia when it was growing.
These indicate that shallow seas ex-
tended inland over 100 miles from
the present Atlantic coats; that there
was a considerable elevation and re-
lief of the Piedmont area to the west;
hat the river gradients were high
and the streams numerous and ore
or less %torrential in character; and
hal there were wamps along the
lower courses of the streams.
The fossil plants indicate that
there was a mild though not a strict
ly tropical climate, without marked
seasonal changes-in fact, there is no
evidence that frost occurred. The
rainfall was abundant, as shown by
the general character of the flora,
as we'll as by certain features OBJ
served on some of the leaves and
known as the dripping points"
The later or Eocene flora has been