PRESIDENT WHITE LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR—U. 8; CROLOGICAL SURVEY J. W. POWELL,’ DIRECTOR ‘SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. LESTER F. WARD se ete ; : e : : {EXTRACT FROM THE FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR, 1883-84.) | “WASHINGTON . GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE | be 1885. 3 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. BY LESTER F. WARD. A 964. wert UNIVER, cor’ The President White oc Library “ervey © CONTENTS. Page I,—On the term ‘‘Paleobotany” ... 2... 0.022... 220 cence eee eee eee tenees 363 Il.—Interrelations of geology and biology .........0 -- 0-2 cee eee eee eee ees 363 III.—Scope of the present paper -............ 022-2. eee ime weiee Baowese 364 IV.—Need of o condensed exhibit.......... 000. cece cee ee eee cence cece 364 V.—Future prospects of paleobotany .......... 020. .20eee cee e ee cece ee cee eee 365 VI.—Interdependence'of botany and paleobotany ........--.-.----. 2... +.-- 366 VII.—Historical review of paleobotanical discovery ...........-------+++++-+ 368 A.—Biographical sketches.......... 022-22 seeeee cece eee cee eee eee 368 1. ScheuGhzerewwcceus veto shoe cewudd woe etece eee seaees 370 2. Schlotheimiecsioyceuses cs cond cee ccd seeeseceeees Sead + 370 Oy Stern bere se cece sci des wee ces weaiMaeecad atea kee sey 371 4, (BION SMalte-socosacc ceca sews is seiccee ees See ceeeiees's 372 Os Witla. ccc s eee es scncekkee tedaeea taneee ne ee eee 372 6: (GOp pert accede cccewd es cemeeeee seme coetamee Gedeng ee 373 Me COVOM scence io emer eons Soke weedy cer aeetes Bee ceet 374 8) Geimlty sscccemmdacceweesexenes:o woeet Weemee ees Soe ees xe 374 9. Binney wsvemeesaecveher se seach: secmidcceeedessetadee 374 10) Un gerard: 2 osscé egened iain ven eseeuiaecmmmes sees eeee 375 I. Schim per ys ciece ses xian Wield oy weeeineeeemeeeets - eESe eet 375 12. Williamson) sccccvccnscieess cose wedaaseneecees ese cece 376 13; AbesquerenX ys. <2 ocsloncos getencvsen ret wneecesedsas | SCG 143 Dawsoivgsceesex cers ot cimiee seasecuiasesessi waewen sees Oe 15, SHeerce ceases cies as soy, be Sash aaceesseieece weet ee seuisle 378 16; Bunburyicseceste e252 saaleeeorcecseses seas st eee cees: OTD 17. Massalongo....--.- fp biereiate aie cle ieerectig Sisiete tia eat s'oeiee’ 379 18.. Ettingshausen sss ses wseesesectesieasiess! Se eeiep-o0 ese 380 19: Newberty 2: sess lcarsceertiahiess pice weenie “OBI 20, Schenk: < ojsis sce. eeoveclwusincs aed ¢ ses keene enenee 382 21. Saporta cess cee ou snk wenn ves aeriewe teenie eee 383 22. Carruthers) c.sucsceic cece x sakewhreron cree dice tewideeeet 384 B.—Sketch of the early history and subsequent progress of paleo- hota Yrrcdctac see cen Seis twa meee Seee Geel neds wee de eae euied 385 1. The pre-scientific period ...-...----. --- 2 ee eee eee eee 385 2. The scientific period ........--.. 2-2-2 ------ eee ee eee 399 VIII.—Nomenclature and classification of fossil plants...--.....---.------+--- 425 1X.—The natural method as indicated by paleobotany.........----..----..- 431 1. Types of vegetation. ...... 0... 02.22. cen ee coe cee eee cee eee 432 2) “The Linnweanisy stem coset acess tinetce ties gees cece ees 433 3. Systems of the Jussieus .....-. ..---- eee cece e eee eee eee ee eee 434 4, System of modern botanists .... .-..-..----..----- + --- 2 eee eee 435 5. Modified system proposed ....-..---.----------------- eee weaea 436 6. Classification of the cryptogams ...--.. 2.202. 222. cence eee eee 437 7. Geognostico-botanical view of the plant life of the globe ...-...- 439 359 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. PLaTE LVI.—Diagram No. 1; showing the relative predominence of each prin- cipal type of vegetation at each geological period (colored).. 443 LVII.—Diagram No. 2, showing the observed origin and development of the principal types of vegetation in geologic time .......- 450 LVIII.—Diagram No. 3, showing the assumed origin and develonment of the principal types of vegetation in geologic time ..-...-. 452 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY.' By LESTER F. WARD. I.-ON THE TERM “ PALEOBOTANY.” The term paleobotany has the advantage of brevity over the more common expressions vegetable paleontology and phytopaleontology, while at the same time its etymologic derivation from two purely Greek words renders it equally legitimate. Still, neither of the other terms should be entirely discarded. While it is always necessary to use the specific term for the science of fossil plants, the practice of employing the ge- neric term paleontology when treating of animal remains only seems ob- jectionable. The corresponding term paleozodlogy should be recognized, and used whenever the more restricted expressions vertebrate paleon- tology and invertebrate paleontology are inapplicable. It is thus only that the terminology of the science becomes consistent and itself sci- entific. IL—INTERRELATIONS OF GEOLOGY AND BIOLOGY. The science of paleontology has two objects, the one geologic, the other biologic. The history of the earth is toa large extent the history of its life, and the record which organic life leaves constitutes the prin- cipal index to the age of its successive strata. In paleozodlogy this record is implicitly relied upon and forms the solid foundation of geo- logical science. In paleobotany so much cannot be said, yet it too has already rendered valuable service to geology, and is often the only guide furnished by nature to the solution of important problems. The contribution that paleontology thus makes to the history of the earth—to geology—is not more interesting than that which it makes to the history of the earth’s life—to biology. No questions are more en- grossing, nor in fact more practically important for man as one of the living forms developed on the earth, than those that pertain to the origin and development of the various forms of life, and a knowledge of the past life of the globe is that by which we are enabled to understand its 1 Being a preliminary draft of a portion of the introduction to a ‘Compendium of Paleobotany,” in preparation. yy prep 368 364 SKETCH OF PALEUBOTANY. present life as a product of development. Paleozodlogy has already thrown a flood of light upon the true nature of animal life as it now ex- ists, and now paleobotany is rapidly coming to the aid of those who have hitherto so long groped in darkness relative to the origin, development, and distribution of the plant life of the globe. III.—_SCOPE OF THE PRESENT PAPER. With the second of these objects the present work is only incident- ally concerned, its chief aim being to secure, so far as its influence ex- tends, the better realization of the first. Still, it cannot be denied that a considerable degree of mutual dependence subsists between the bio- logic and the geologic standpoints. To understand the true force of the facts of paleobotany as arguments for geology it is essential that their full biologic significance be grasped. It has therefore been deemed proper, in this introduction to the several tabular and systematic state- ments which will make up the bulk of the volume and bear chiefly upon the geological aspect of the subject, to consider certain of the more im- portant biologic questions, in addition to the specially geologic ones, and to discuss, from an historical and developmental standpoint, some of the leading problems of modern phytology. IV.—NEED OF A CONDENSED EXHIBIT. First of all it must be insisted upon that, notwithstanding the large amount of work that has been done in paleobotany and the somewhat formidable literature which it possesses, the present state of the science is far from satisfactory when regarded as a guide to the attainment of either of the ends above mentioned. Its value, as compared with that of paleozodlogy, in the determination of ‘the age of formations in which vegetable remains are discovered is very small, yetit may well be asked whether the habit of discounting the testimony of fossil plants, acquired at a time when much less was known than now, may not have been con- tinued to an extent which is no longer warranted by the present state of our knowledge. Whether this be so or not, it is at least certain that the real present insufficiency of this department of paleontology as an exact and reliable index to geologic succession is largely due to the ex- ceedingly fragmentary and desultory character of the science, consid- ered as a body of truth, and that a proper and careful collation and sys- temization of the facts already in the possession of science will add in a high degree to their value in this respect. It was this consideration, so obvious to me from the beginning of my investigations in paleobot- any, that moved me to undertake the compilation of this work, and it WARD.] PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 865 has been the growing importance of this same consideration, becoming more apparent at every step, that has impelled and encouraged me throughout its laborious preparation. It is especially in America that this want of methodical arrange- ment in paleobotany has been most keenly felt. The most important works on fossil plants have been published since the last attempt of this kind was made in Europe, and very little of our knowledge of the science has ever been embodied in any of the works of this class. The literature of this country is scattered throughout the scientific serials and official publications of the various geological surveys, and the few more comprehensive works that have appeared not only leave this branch of the subject in great doubt and confusion, but contain, besides, many fundamental misconceptions and positive errors. ‘Whatever degree of inadequacy paleobotany may reveal for the solu- tion of geologic questions, no one can deny that its value can never be fairly judged until its materials are first so classified and arranged that all the light that can be shed by them on any given problem can be directed full upon it and the problem deliberately studied byit. When this can be accomplished, even should it do no more than emphasize the insufficiency of the data, it would, even then, have the effect of pointing out the proper direction of future research with a view to in- creasing the material and perfecting the data. This work has been conceived and is being conducted primarily to this end of thus focaliz- ing, asit were, the knowledge already extant in this department of re- search, and of bringing it to bear with its full force, however feeble this may be, upon the questions to whose solution it is capable of being legitimately applied. V.—FUTURE PROSPECTS OF PALEOBOTANY, While it is particularly as a contribution to American science, and with special reference to its application to American geology that the work has been undertaken, still, for many and obvious reasons it was found impossible to confine it to purely American facts. The useful- ness, for the purpose intended, of any such compilation increases in an accelerated ratio as its scope is expanded, and its value only begins to be really great when it approaches complete universality and compasses the whole field of facts so far as known within its particular department. While this would be true of any science, it is conspicuously so of paleo- botany, where, more than anywhere else, the record is so notably incom- plete, A more spécial reason in this case lies in the fact, only recently so strongly felt by paleobotanists, that the floras of the successive epochs in the history of the earth have been differentiating and becoming more and more varied according to their degree of territorial separation, so that in studying them in reverse order we find greater and greater uni- 366 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. formity over the whole globe as we go back in time. The fact that even the Tertiary floras of the most remote regions of the world possess a striking resemblance among one another, wholly unknown among ex- isting floras, has only just now fairly revealed itself to science, and found its striking confirmation in the very recent work? of Baron von Et- tingshausen on the Tertiary Flora of Australia. This uniform char- acter of the fossil floras of different epochs, combined with their varia- tion from one epoch to another, lends hope to paleobotany and leads to the belief that when we shall have learned with precision the true char- acteristics of each flora—learned to distinguish the accidental from the essential, and geographic from chronologic characteristics—we shall be in a condition to apply the data at hand to the explanation and eluci- dation of the geologic and biologic history of the earth. While it is upon the defectiveness of the geologic record, so far as plants help to make it, that the chief stress is usually laid, still, could this record be so edited that it could be made to convey its full mean- ing it would probably be found that it is really more complete than the biologic record; in other words, the knowledge we have of fossil plants would go further in explaining geologic succession and deter- mining questions of age than it can be made to do in explaining the mode of development, distribution, and differentiation of plant forms on theearth’s suface. On the subject of geographical distribution, with which are inevitably bound up many questions of origin, variation, and descent, much has already been written. De Candolle. Hooker, Gray, Grisebach, Ettingshausen, Heer, and Engler have at different times and iu numerous ways succeeded in building up a body of valuable literature relating to phytogeography. Since, however, this concerns itself prin- cipally with explaining the origin of existing floras, chiefly dicotyledon- ous, it cannot reach back to the primary and doubtless ever insoluble problems of the differentiation of the great types of vegetation that have successively dominated the plant life of the globe through past geologic. ages. Yet, however hopeless the task when the idea of complete solu- tion is considered, it is nevertheless these very questions which are con- stantly pressing upon the thoughtful student, and he cannot suppress them if he will, or cease to recognize that they are legitimate, and that every, even the least, approach towards their solution is so much clear gain to science. q VI—INTERDEPENDENCE OF BOTANY AND PALEOBOT- ANY. It is only quite recently that botanists have begun to turn their atten- tion to questions of this kind. The overthrow of the doctrine of fixity ef species opened the door to such considerations, rendering them legiti- *Beitrige zur Kenntniss der Tertiirflora Australiens. Von C. von Ettingshausen. Denksehr. d. k. k. Akad. d. Wissensch., Bd. XLVII, Wien, 1883. WARD. ] PRELIMINARY REMARKS, 367 mate, and the doctrine of the descent of all plant forms from remote ancestors more or less unlike them may now be said to prevail, although few and feeble have been the attempts to indicate the character of the genetic relationships existing among living types. This general sub- ject will be treated later, but it is mentioned here merely to show how it has naturally come about that botanists are now turning their attention towards paleontology as the only source that holds out any promise to them of even partial success in explaining the development of existing floras. The effect of this can but be salutary, and paleobotany is likely to gain as much as botany proper. Even should no success be attained in the direction sought both sciences will gain, since it will bring them into more intimate relations and tend to blend them, as is natural, iuto ore science. Hitherto, it must be confessed, they have been studied too independently. In fact, not only have botanists as a rule ignored the existence of paleontology, but paleobotanists have generally gone on with their botanical classifications and discussions in total disregard of the elaborate systems of the former. Without comparing the results thus independently arrived at, it is safe to pronounce this entire method unwise and improper. To harmonize these results after so long a course of divergence will be a difficult task, and in the effort which is here made in this direction complete success is neither claimed nor hoped for. But if the existing vegetation of the globe has descended from its past vegetation, as almost every botanist as weli as paleontolo- gist now assumes, what reason can exist for having two sets of classifica- tion? The botanist is thus dependent upon paleontology for all his knowledge of vegetal development and should listen closely to the voice of the past and learn from it the true order in time in which the ances- tors of each living type appeared on the earth. Every one must see that this will be of the highest importance as a guide to classification, and will supplement in the most effective manner the data furnished by the developed organs of living plants. We shall ultimately see that, when rightly interpreted, these two sources of proof, instead of con- flicting, agree in a most instructive manner, rendering that system of classification which is in harmony with both classes of facts in a high degree probable and satisfactory. On the other hand, every candid paleobotanist must admit that he can understand fossil plants only as they resemble living ones, and that the botanist, studying the perfect specimen with all its organs of reproduction as well as of nutrition, can alone declare with absolute cer- tainty upon its identity or affinity. This mutual dependence of the two branches of botanical science upon each other is so apparent that it is certainly a matter of surprise that it has received so little recognition by scientific men. Meee 368 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. VII.—-HISTORICAL REVIEW OF PALEOBOTANICAL DIS- COVERY. A.—-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Paleobotany is a science of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless its dawn at the beginning of this century was preceded by a long fading twilight extending entirely through the eighteenth. Buteven when we consider the nineteenth century alone, its progress shows us that it has as yet scarcely entered into the full lightof day. If we judge it by its literature, not always a safe guide, but certainly the best one we possess, we find that the first half of this century produced less than one-fourth as much as the third quarter, and this less than the still un- finished fourth quarter. If we measure the literature, as we may roughly do, by the number of titles of books, memoirs, and papers that have been contributed to it, we will arrive at a rude conception of the accelerated rate at which the science is advancing. Ignoring for the present certain vague allusions that were made to the subject by the ancients and by writers down to the close of the seventeenth century, some hundred and fifty works might be named belonging to the eighteenth century that bear in a more or less direct way upon vegetable fossils, but this would exhaust the enumeration. A nearly equal number could be named which appeared during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, while fully two hundred titles, includ- ing many large works, issued from the press during the second quarter of the century. And yet, as already shown, this was but the beginning, and the true season of interest and activity did not set in until the sixth decade, since which time this activity has steadily, if not uniformly, increased until the present, when the number of works and minor memoirs relating to fossil plants that see the light each year often reaches a hundred. Although the number of persons who have interested themselves in paleobotany and have published more or less upon it is very great, while those who have become eminent in this field may be counted by scores, still, if we confine ourselves to such only as may be called pre-eminent, who have devoted their lives chiefly and successfully to it, and have either constituted its true founders or enriched in an especial manner its literature and perfected its methods, we may restrict them to eight or ten. If called upon to specify, we might reduce this enumeration to the following great names which stand forth as the true leaders and heroes of this science: Adolphe Théodore Brongniart, Heinrich Robert Géppert, Franz Unger, Leo Lesquereux, Oswald Heer, Abramo Massa- longo, Baron Constantin von Ettingshausen, and the Marquis Gaston de Saporta. Whether we consider the number of works actually pro- duced, the volume of this literature, the quality or importance of their ’ WARD.] BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 369 work, or the amount of painstaking labor devoted to the science, we find that much more than half of all we possess of permanent value in pa- leobotany has emanated from the brains, the hands, and the pens of these eight lifelong and laborious devotees of their chosen science. It thus appears that the history of paleobotany must consist largely in an account of the labors of a few persons, and had we nothing more to offer than such an account, a fairly just conception of its origin, prog- ress, nature, and scope might be thus afforded. But it might be justly objected that so limited an enumeration not only leaves out of the ac- count some of the most important works and most fertile workers, but also fails to give the true relative importance to those earliest pioneers, who, though they cannot be classed as the true founders of the science, nevertheless first pointed out, and then actually broke, the way to fu- ture research and discovery. Let us then extend our list to cover these two important classes, and we still find that though much longer than before it is not so long as to be burdensome. By nearly trebling our former number the selections may be so made that, while not denying great eminence and merit to many others, the history of discovery in vegetable paleontology may be fairly represented by the labors of about twenty-two men. A bare enumeration of these names in the order in which they commenced to write would at least embrace the following: 1, Johann Jacob Scheuchzer ...... ..-. 0.2 222 eee eee ee ee eee eee 1709 2. Ernst Friederich, Baron von Schlotheim .........-. hehe Sa eile emo aeess 1801 3. Kaspar Maria, Graf von Sternberg .....--.-..----- +--+ 0-2-2202 eee ee eee eee 1804 4. Adolphe Théodore Brongniart.......- 2.2... 0 ceee cence eee eee ene eee 1822 5. Henry T. M. Witham... 2... 222. cece eee cee cece ee cece cece ee cece eeee eens 1829 6. Heinrich Robert Goppert .....-2. 0.20. 22 cee eee ce eee eee ee eee cee eee 1834 Cc RU GUSE Obl Phi COLA sic.c:sjeieleicraiis shia wictaresaiaiaibc “wieje'd rose sive sresssdasdioalaieesisnsereciee'S 1838 8. Hans Bruno Geinitz ..---. 22. 2-022 cee ee cee ce ee nee cee teen eee 1839 9. Edward William Binney... ..-..--- 220. 2020+ cee e ee ee eee ee eee nee ten eee 1839 LO, Pan 2 UD OP :s,2js; aje,ojsieieis. sisseroias wisuese Sirs obtensieiee oo eiemie Ge cee Sasiy se aiemmmerseie 1840 11. Wilhelm Philip Schimper: .:.....22, ssje0c8i-eeiienct Dex sos boeeice-ceine sei tees ie 1840 12. William Crawford Williamson ........-...-. ----.----5 202. eee eee eee eee eee 1842 1S. eo. Liesquereuk.: <.<25266 26a: 22 Sire pesiee ed ieee eseee REeee dae eee Sees eee 1845 14. Sir John William Dawson .....-..---- 2202-2 cece cee ee eee nee eee nee 1845 15. Oswald Heer ......---. ---- +2 222+ 022 e ee eee ee eee cece ee cee ce eee reese 1846 16. Sir Charles James Fox Bunbury .-.-...--- 2-22-20 see eee cee cece ee cee eee ee 1846 17. Abramo Massalongo ..-... 2-2. -- 2-2 eee eee eee cee ee ee ee eee ee 1850 18. Constantin, Freiherr von Ettingshausen ......-...-.--------++------+ +--+ . 1850 19. John Strong Newberry ......2.---. 2-220 eens ce ee ee ree cee cee ene eee 1853 20; -Avigtist Schenk. <5...) se05 senceneemeseindeciesweanes fen .a veneers nescsaes 1858 21. Marquis Gaston de Saporta.... .--- ..-.--6 eee eee cee eee nee ee eee cee eee 1860 22, William Carruthers .... ..-..--. 022022 cece cee cee cee eee teres cee eee ees 1865 From this list are omitted the names of a considerable number of the younger active workers in this field whose thorough and successful work has already placed them in the front rank, but whose career is so far from completed that its proper characterization will belong to the future historian of the science. GEOL 84——24 370 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. A brief biographical sketch including the mention of some of the more important contributions of each of the above-named paleobotanists may now be made. 1. Scheuchzer.—Switzerland, which furnished one of the last and greatest of all the cultivators of this science who have now passed away, furnished also the first name that can with any true propriety be placed in the list of paleobotanists. Although he wrote on many other subjects, and worked in some very different fields, the paleon- tological works of Scheuchzer are the only ones that possess any enduring value, and although he did not confine his studies to vege- table fossils, he still gave these a much larger share of his attention than they now receive from paleontologists in general, compared to that which is bestowed by them upon the other forms of extinct life. He was born at Ziirich in 1672, and died in the same city in 1733. He traveled quite extensively and made large collections of all kinds of curiosities, which he described and figured in numerous works. He regarded all fossils as relics of the Noachian deluge, and gained a permanent place in the history of science by describing the bones of a gigantic salamander as “Homo diluvii testis.” His most important work was his “ Herbarium diluvianum,” first published at Ziirich in 1709, but thoroughly revised and republished at Leyden in 1723. In this work many fossil plants are figured with sufficient accuracy for identification. Several of Scheuchzer’s other works con- tain mention of fossil plants, particularly his ‘“‘ Museum diluvianum” (1716), and his “ Oryctographia helvetica” (in Part III of the “ Hel- vetie historia naturalis,” 1716-18), but their value to the science, as indeed that of all his writings, is now chiefly historical. When, how- ever, we consider that Scheuchzer antedated by almost a full century the earliest properly scientific treatises on paleobotany, we are prepared to overlook his deficiencies, and to regard him as the true precursor of the science. 2. Schlotheim.—Ernst Friedrich, Baron von Schlotheim, of Gotha, whose career began with the first years of the present century, is the second name that stands out prominently in the history of paleobotany. Not that there had not been many in the course of the long century which separates him from Scheuchzer who had interested themselves in the study of fossil plants, and who collectively had accumulated the data which rendered the work of Schlotheim possible, but to him is due the credit of first marshaling the evidence from vegetable remains in support of a true science of geology. A sketch of the early struggles and final triumph of strictly scientific principles as drawn from paleontology will presently be presented from the phytological side, and we may therefore content ourselves here with mentioning the grounds upon which Schlot- heim’s claims rest to a place in the present enumeration. Born at Almenhausen (Schwarzburg-Sondershausen) in 1764, and educated at Géttingen and Freiburg, he took up the study of mineralogy wano.| BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 371 and metallurgy, which naturally led him into paleontology, for which he had a strong attachment. In 1801 he published in Hoff’s “Magazin” (I, pp. 76-95), at Leipzig, his ““Abhandlung iiber die Kriuter-A bdriicke im Schieferthon und Sandstein der Steinkohlen-Formation,” and in 1804 his “ Beschreibung merkwiirdiger Kraiiter-A bdriicke und Pflanzen-Ver- steinerungen, ein Beitrag zur Flora der Vorwelt” (I. Abtheilung), with fourteen plates, illustrating by accurately drawn figures a large number of Carboniferous plants. In 1805 he was made councilor director and in 1820 president of the College Cameral of Saxe-Gotha, and in 1822 director of the Museum at Gotha. In 1820 he published at Gotha “Die Petrefactenkunde auf ihren jetztigen Standpunkt,” the first Heft of which really constitutes the second part (Abtheilung) of the work last mentioned, and the number of plates here reaches twenty-nine, all but the last two of which are devoted to fossil plants. The remainder of this work relates to animal remains, as does also all but Part III of the “Nachtrag” to the work, which appeared two years later. These works, though few in number, were systematic and conscien- tious, and constituted by far the most important contribution yet made to the knowledge of the primordial vegetation of the globe. They form the earliest strictly scientific record we have in paleobotany. 3. Sternberg.—Kaspar Maria, Graf von Sternberg, though contempo- rary with Schlotheim, is mentioned after him in this enumeration, first, because his first contribution to paleobotany* was made three years later than Schlotheim’s first, and, secondly, because his great work on this subject was not completed until after Schlotheim’s works were all pub- lished and in his hands for use and criticism, and, in fact, not until after Schlotheim’s death. Sternberg was born at Regensburg in 1761 and died at Prague in 1838. He was an assiduous collector, not only of specimens but of books, and when in 1822 he was made president of the Bohemian Na- tional Museum he turned over to it all his collections, including 4,000 volumes of rare works. His specialty was botany, on which he wrote many memoirs, but scattered through the different periodicals of the time are to be found some dozen papers relating to fossil plants. The most important of all his works was his “ Versuch einer geognostich- botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt,” which appeared in numbers from 1820 to 1838, and was translated into French by the Comte de Bray.* To the eighth number, 1838, was appended Corda’s “Skizzen zur vergleichenden Phytotomie vor- und jetztweltlicher Pflanzen.” In this work that of all his predecessors, including Schlot- heim, is reviewed, and considerable progress made toward the correct interpretation of the record, so far as then known, of vegetable paleon- tology. 3 Notice sur les analogues des plantes fossiles. Annales du Muséum d’histoire natu- relle, 1804, Vol. V, pp. 462-470, pl. 31, 32. 4Essai d’un exposé géognostico-botanique de la flore du monde primitif. Ratis- bonne, 1820-1826, fol., 64 pl. 372 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. 4. Brongniart.—Schlotheim and Sternberg may be regarded as pio- neers of the science of paleobotany. Brongniart is universally admitted to have been its true founder. The science may properly be said to have been born in 1828, the year in which both the “ Prodrome” and the “Histoire des végétaux fossiles” appeared. It was these two works that gave it that powerful impetus which forced its immediate recogni- tion and called into its service a large corps of colaborers with Brong- niart, rapidly multiplying its literature and increasing the amount of material for its farther study. Adolpbe Théodore Brongniart was born at Paris in 1801 and died in the same city in 1876. His father, Alexandre, was eminent in science, and the author of at least one memoir relating to fossil plants.° Adolphe turned his attention early to botany and continued through life to devote himself to living plants; but his great specialty was the study of the extinct forms, and his labors in this field extend through nearly half a century. His very first mewoir, ‘Sur la classification et la distribution des végétaux fossiles en général, et sur ceux des terrains de sédiment supérieur en particulier,” which appeared in the ‘‘ Mémoires du Muséum @histoire naturelle de Paris” (pp. 203-240, 297-348) in 1822, was one of great merit and importance, as shadowing forth the compre- hensive system which he was to elaborate. It was a decided improve- ment upon the classifications previously proposed by Steinhauer, Stern- berg, Martius, ete., and was later employed, with extensive modifications, in the “Prodrome.” The great ‘‘ Histoire,” though pushed well into the second volume and enriched by nearly two hundred plates, was un- fortunately never finished, and has come down to us in this truncated condition. The causes which led to this result are understood to have been of a pecuniary character, and the author continued his investiga- tiovs and published his researches for many years chiefly in the “Annales des sciences naturelles de Paris.” His next most important work, how- ever, viz., his “ Tableau des genres de végétaux fossiles,” was published in the “ Dictionnaire universel Whistoire naturelle” in 1849. The mere mention of these titles gives a very inadequate idea of the importance of Brongniart’s work. The systematic manner in which the science was organized and built up by him made him the highest authority on the subject of fossil plants, and the numerous, more or less elaborate me- moirs that continued to appear showed that none of the minor details were neglected. Of his reforms in botanical classification we shall have occasion later to speak more particularly. 5. Witham.—Henry T.M. Witham, of Edinburgh, was the first of aline of British investigators who looked beyond the external form of fossil plants and undertook the systematic study of their internal structure. It is for this reason rather than on account of the bulk of his works that his name is inserted in this enumeration. He is well kuown for his de- 5 Notice sur des végétaux fossiles traversant les couches du terrain houiller. Annales des Mines, Tome VI, 1821, pp. 359-370. WARD.] BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 373 scription of the great Carboniferous tree found in the quarries of Craig- leith, and for other similar investigations. One of his principal works is entitled “The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic Deposits of Great Britain, described and il- lustrated,” Edinburgh, 1833. The illustrations are numerous and well executed, and form a secure basis for all subsequent researches of the kind. 6. Goppert.—Heinrich Robert Géppert, of Breslau, who was born in the year 1800 and who has died since this sketch was first drafted, was the most voluminous writer upon fossil plants that has been produced thus far. In his “Literarische Arbeiten,” prepared by himself in 1881, one hundred distinct works, memoirs, and papers are enumerated relat- ing to this subject, and several have appeared since. Nearly an equal number relate to living plants, and a few to medicine, which was his pro- fession. But his work in vegetable paleontology exceeds by far all his other works in its value to science, embracing as it does many large treatises on the Paleozoic flora (“ Flora der Uebergangsgebirge”), on the amber flora, on the fossil Coniferze, on the fossil ferns, ete. Especially important has been his microscopic work upon the structure of various kinds of fossil woods, particularly those of the Conifer and the Dicotyl- edons. Endowed with the true German devotion to his specialty, with keen observing and analytic powers, with a restless activity, exceptional opportunities, and long life, he was able to create for the science a vast wealth of new facts and give it a solid body of laborionsly wrought truth. If Bronguiart laid the foundations of paleobotany, Géppert may properly be said to have built its superstructure. Though born one year earlier than Brongniart, he did not turn his attention to fossil plants until the latter had been twelve years in that field. His first paper ap- peared in 1834, or just a half century ago.® It was historical in its character. Like many other men who have been destined for a great career, he began it by taking a bird’s-eye view of his subject. He did not despise the literature of his predecessors, even though they groped in the darkness of medieval ignorance. With patriotic pride he first told the story of his own countrymen’s attempts to elucidate the flora of the ancient world, although even in this paper, he by no means confined himself to the limits of Silesia, and two years later he published a great expansion of this historical research as an introduction to his first great work.” No attempt within our present limits of space to convey an idea of the true merits of Géppert’s services to paleobotany could hope to do them justice, and we can only point to the monument he has himself 6 Ueber die Bestrebungen der Schlesier die Flora der Vorwelt zu erliiutern. Schle- . sische Provincialblitter, August und September 1834, Also in Karsten und Dechen's Archiv, Band VIII, 1835, pp. 232-249, ‘7 Systema filicum fossilium : Die fossilen Farnkréuter. Nov. Act. Acad. Cas. Leop. Car., Tom. XVII, suppl., pp. 1-76. 374 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. reared, and enroll his name alongside those of Brongniart, Unger, and Heer. 7. Oorda.—The propriety of placing Corda’s name in this roll of honor may be questioned by some, but his contributions to paleobotany were important, and there can be no doubt that had his life not been prema- turely cut off they would have been far more so. Born in 1810 at Reich- enberg, Bohemia, he early turned his attention to botany, and espe- cially to close histological investigations in fangology. Humboldt, attracted by his productions, called him to Berlin in 1829, and Stern- berg recalled him to Prague in 1834. His “Skizzen zur vergleichenden Phytotomie,” appended to Heft 8 of Sternberg’s ‘Flora der Vorwelt,” was a valuable addition to that work, and led the way to his two other principal works, “ Beitrige zur Flora der Vorwelt,” Prague, 1845, and “Die fossilen Pflanzen der béhmischeu Kreideformation” (in Reuss’s “ Versteinerungen der béhmischen Kreideformation”), Stuttgart, 1846. In these works and other of his memoirs a large number of species of fossil plants are named, described, and carefully figured, forming a permanent tribute to the growing science. In 1847 Prince Colloredo sent Corda to Texas to collect scientific material. He remained there two years, making large accumulations, and started back with them in the Bremen steamer Victoria, which was lost in the middle of the At- lantic, and Corda, with all his scientific treasures, went down with her. 8. Geinitz—Only a comparatively small number of Geinitz’s papers relate to paleobotany, and a still smaller number are devoted exclu- sively to that subject; and yet not less than thirty-five titles belong to this department of paleontology. Born at Altenburg in 1814, he has stood for a full half century in the front rank of continental geologists, and still continues his indefatigable labors. His protracted studies into the age and character of the Quadersandstein formation of Germany, in which so many fossil plants have been found, have shed much light upon this difficult horizon, while his investigations in the Permian (Dyas, Zechstein), the Carboniferous, aud the Graywacke have always led him to study and describe the floras of these periods. We thus pos- sess in his works a geological authenticity for very many fossil plants, which all paleobotanists know how to appreciate. His “ Characteristik der Schichten und Petrefakten des sichs.-béhmischen Kreidegebirges,” Dresden, 1839-42, appears to have been his first work relating to our subject, and his paleobotanical labors therefore date from 1839. 9. Binney.—If Witham deserved enumeration in our present list for founding the British school of what may be called phytopaleontological histologists, Binney must be admitted in recognition of the extent and importance of his researches in this department. He seems to have commenced publishing the results of his investigations in 1839,' and ’The first of his papers whose title appears in the ‘‘ Royal Society Catalogue” is ‘‘On a Microscopic Vegetable Skeleton found in Peat near Gainsborough.” British Association Report, 1839 (Part II), pp. 71, 72. WARD.] BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 375 continued them without interruption to the end of his life. His most important work, on the “Structure of Fossil Plants from the Carbonif- erous Strata,” published by the Paleontographical Society of London, was commenced in 1868. His death took place in the year 1882. 10. Unger.—Franz Unger of Steiermark, who was born in 1800 and died in 1870, was one of the most illustrious of European botanists and paleontologists. His memoirs and books on paleobotany are only less numerous than those of Géppert, and among them is an unusually large number of monographs of great value. His investigations were chiefly confined to the more recent formations, and his “Chloris protogea,” “Flora von Sotzka,” “Iconographia plantarum fossilium,” and “Sylloge plantarum fossilium” are worthy of special mention. His “Synopsis plantarum fossilium ” and ‘Genera et species” are systematic attempts to compile the known data of the science in condensed and convenient form. His first paper? on the subject was published in 1840. 11. Schimper.—Although Schimper contributed a paper” on fossil plants as early as 1840, and was associated with Mougeot in preparing their important “Monographie des plantes fossiles du grés bigarré de la chaine des Vosges” in 1844, as also with Kéchlin-Schlumberger in his “‘Terrain de transition des Vosges” in 1862, still, but for his great “Traité de paléontologie végétale,” the third volume of which appeared in 1874, it is evident that this eminent bryologist would not have been entitled to be also ranked among the great paleobotanists. The “Traité” is unquestionably the most important contribution yet made to the science. Although necessarily to a large degree a compilation of the work of others, still it is by no means wanting in originality, and contains a great amount of new matter. Its chief merit, however, is in its conception and plan as a complete manual of systematic paleobotany. The classification is highly scientific and rational, and the discussion of abstruse points in defense of it is acute and cogent. Every species of fossil plant known to the author is described in Latin, and much independence is manifested in the rejection of synonyms. Very important is the geological classification at the end of Volume II, showing that the author had clear ideas of the uses of the science. The selections for the atlas are always the very best, and not a few of the figures are original. Although not in possession of all the extant data, particularly from America," Schimper succeeded in supplying in this work the greatest need of paleobotany. His great talent as an organ- 8Ueber ein Lager vorweltlicher Pflanzen auf der Stangalpe. Steyermarkische Zeitschrift, Gritz, 1840. I have only been able to consult this memoir in Leonhard & Bronn’s Neue Jahrbiicher (1842, pp. 607, 608), which may not contain it in extenso. 10Baumfarne, Schachtelhalme, Cycadeen, Aethophyllum, Albertia * * * im bunten Sandstein der Vogesen; Hysterium auf einem Pappel-Blatte der Wetterauer Braun- kohle. Leonhard und Broun’s Neue Jahrbiicher, 1840, pp. 336-338. Communication dated 14. Miirz 1840. “See “The American Journal of Science,” 3d series, Vol. XXVII (April. 1884), p. 296. 376 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. izer and text-book writer was again seen in his able contribution to Zittel’s “Handbuch der Paléontologie.” Wilhelm Philip Schimper was born at Dosenheim (Alsace) in 1808, and died at Strasbourg, where most of his work had been done, in 1880. He became director of the Museum of National History of Strasbourg in 1839. 12. Williamson.—_In Mr. W. C. Williamson we have a third of the line of eminent British paleobotanists, whose chief attention has been directed to the study of the internal structure of Carboniferous plants, and the one who at the present time unquestionably stands at the head of this school of investigators. If we include his paper “‘On the Origin of Coal,” published in the report of the British Association for 1842 (Part IT, pp. 48, 49), his place would be where we have assigned bim, but his special work upon the plants themselves seems not to have commenced until 1851, and then to have been more or less interrupted until 1868, since which time it has been incessant, culminating in his great work “On the Organization of the Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures,” which runs through so many volumes of the ‘‘ Philosophical Transactions.” Of the merits of this work, as of all of this author’s investigations, it is certainly unnecessary to speak here. 13. Lesquereux.—Mr. Leo Lesquereux of Columbus, Ohio, is one of those acquisitions which America has so often made at Europe’s expense when political turmoils arise there and make liberty dearer even than country. He was of that little band, which also included Agassiz and Guyot, who were compelled to abandon Switzerland in 1847 and 1848, on the occasion of the breaking up of the Academy of Neuchatel and the coming into power of the so-called Liberal party. His ancient family name was Les- cure, afterwards Lescurieux, and finally Lesquereux, and his immediate ancestors were French Huguenots. He was born November 18, 1806, at Fleurier, canton of Neuchatel. His father was a manufacturer of watch springs and endeavored to teach him that business, though, since bis health was somewhat delicate, his mother preferred to prepare him for the ministry ; but Science had marked him for her own, and no power could withdraw him from nature. With a taste for plants in geveral, he was led by circumstances first to the study of mosses, then naturally to that of peat, and lastly to that of fossil plants. The government of Neuchatel was then greatly interested in the protection of peat bogs on account of the difficulty of procuring fuel for the poor, and offered a prize (a gold medal of 20 ducats) for the best memoir on the formation and preservation of peat. Lesquereux competed and won the prize. His prize memoir” gained a wide reputation, was extensively copied, and is still quoted as one of the best on the subject. 2 Quelques recherches sur les marais tourbeux en général. Mémoires de la Société des sciences naturelles de Neuchatel, Tome III, 1845. (See summary in the Archives des sciences phys. et nat. de Gendve, Tome VI, p. 154.) WARD.) BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 377 The connecting link between this study and that of fossil plants was supplied two years later, when he wrote a short paper “Sur les plantes qui forment la houille.” On his arrival in America he studied the coal formations of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas, and other States, and his reports appear in those of the geological surveys of all of these States. Especially important are those upon the coal flora of Pennsylvania. The first of these appeared in the second volume of the report of H. D. Rogers, in 1858, consisting of some quite elaborate “ General Remarks,” and a “Catalogue of the Fossil Plants which have been Named or De- scribed from the Coal Measures of North America.” This is accom. panied by twenty-three excellent plates. But this was a mere begin- ning, for when the second geological survey of Pennsylvania was un- dertaken Mr. Lesquereux was employed to work up the coal flora, which appeared in 1880 in a volume of text and an atlas, the most im- portant work on carboniferous plants that has been produced in Amer- ica, A third volume, supplementary to these, has just been issued. In 1868 Mr. Lesquereux began the study of the floras of later forma- tions in the West, and contributed an important paper on the Cretaceous leaves of Nebraska to the “American Journal of Science.”"* Dr. F. V. Hayden employed him to work up the collections of his surveys of the Territories, and important papers on the subject appeared in the annual reports of the survey for 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874. In the last of these years appeared his “Cretaceous Flora,” forming Volume VI of the quarto reports. In 1878 the seventh volume of these quarto reports was published, a still larger work, devoted to what he called the “ Ter- tiary Flora,” though a very large proportion of: the species were from the Laramie Group. The eighth of these volumes will also be by Mr. Lesquereux, and will consist of a thorough revision of the entire Creta- ceous and Tertiary floras of North America. Mr. Lesquereux is still liv- ing, and though infirm with age is actively engaged in bryological and paleontdlogical studies. 14. Dawson.—To Sir J. W. Dawson is due the greater part of the knowl- edge we possess concerning the vegetable paleontology of Canada and the British North American provinces in general. His numerous papers, run- ning back as far as 1845, are almost exclusively confined to the descrip- tion and illustration of material from this part of the world, and all except a few recent ones relate to the older formations of the East. i3 Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles (Bibliotheque universelle), Tome VI, 1847, pp. 158-162. Genéve. 14Qn Some Cretaceous Fossil Plants from Nebraska, Am, Journ. Sci., 2d series, Vol, XLVI (July, 1868), pp. 91-105. 15 His paper ‘On the Newer Coal Formation of the Eastern Part of Nova Scotia” (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., Vol. I, 1845, pp. 322-330) merely names a few genera ‘occurring there, but his ‘Notices of Some Fossils Found in the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia” (1. c., Vol. II, 1846, pp. 132-136), giving his views on Sternbergia, at- tracted immediate attention. : 378 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. His reports upon “The Fossil Plants of the Devonian and Upper Silu- rian Formations of Canada,” upon “The Fossil Plants of the Lower Carboniferous and Millstone Grit Formations of Canada,” and upon “The Fossil Plants of the Erian (Devonian) and Upper Silurian Forma- tions of Canada” are monographs of especial value. A geologist rather than a botanist, he has done excellent service, not only in elucidating the important problems of Acadian geology, but also in demonstrating the value and legitimacy of the evidence furnished by vegetable remains. Dawson was born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, in the year 1820, and though educated at Edinburgh, he returned to his native country and has de- voted his whole life to the study of its geology and paleontology. He These works were all important additions to the literature of the science, and rep- resented a large amount of original research. The third volume of Bronn’s Index Palwontologicus, namely, the Enumerator, did not appear until 1849. It contains Géppert’s table of the vegetable fossils as known to him, arranged under their respective geological formations. All the species are enumerated in systematic order, but with an inconvenient appendix (pp. 5-72), and arenot summed up at the end. The summary is, however, introduced in another part of the volume (p. 727), and shows that considerable progress had been made since 1847, when Unger made his synopsis in his ‘ Chloris Pro- togaea,” although, a8 already remarked, the 1,648 species there given is the same as given in his “Synopsis plantarum fossilium” (1845), which seems not to have been revised, while Géppert had already enumerated in 1844 (supra, p. 416) 1,778 species. From these figures we now have an advance to 2,055, or more than four times as many as were known to Brongniart in 1828, though only about one-fourth the num- ber now known. The great work of 1849 was Brongniart’s “Tableau des genres de végé- taux fossiles.”* The author’s views relating to the classification and 26 Reinhold Berger. De fructibus et seminibus ex formatione lithanthracum. Dis- sertatio inauguralis quam consensu et auctoritate amplissimi philosophorum ordinis in alma litterarum universitate viadrina ad summas in philosophia honores rite capes- sendos die XVIII, M. Decembris, A. MDCCCXLVIII. H.L. Q.S. publice defendet Auctor. Vratislavie, 1848. 27 Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, Vol. VIII, 1848, p. 148. 7 228-V ol. II, pp. 2—456. 29 Verhandlungen des naturhistorischen vereines der preussishen Rheinlande, V. Jabrg., 1848, pp. 113, 126. 230 Preisschrift. Abhandlung, eingesandt als Antwort auf die Preisfrage: * ob die Steinkohlenlager aus Pflanzen entstanden sind, etc. Eine mit dem doppelten Preise gekrénte Schrift. Haarlem, 1848, 4°, 300 S, 23 Taf., forming the 4¢ Deel, Tweede versameling, Verhandl. Holl. Maatschappen. 231 Victor Raulin. Sur les transformations de la flore de l’Europe centrale pendant la période tertiaire. Annales des sciences naturelles de Paris, 3° série, Botanique, Tome X, 1848, p. 193. 232 Annals and Magazine of Natural History, ser. II, Vol I, 1848, p. 376; Proc. Linn. Soc. I, 1849, p. 344; Trans. Linn. Soc., Vol. XX, Pt. I, 1851, p. 469, Pl. XXIII, XXIV, Cf. Comtes rendus des séances de l’Academie des sciences, Tome 67, 1868, pp. 421426. 23 J, Sauveur. Végétaux fossiles des terrain houillers de la Belgique, Académie royale des sciences, des lettres, et des beaux-arts de Belgique, Tome XXII, 1848. 24Tablean des genres de végétaux fossiles consideré sous le point de vue de leur classification botanique et de leur distribution géologique. Paris, 1849, 8°. Diction- naire uniyersel d’histoire naturelle. *® * 422 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. distribution of the extinct genera and species of fossil plants are here systematically set forth and superbly illustrated. A memoir on the same subject” appeared in the “ Annales des sciences naturelles” for the same year, in a manner summarizing his views and giving lists of fossil plants belonging to each horizon. In seeking to avoid all duplications that result from giving different names to different parts of the same plant, his enumeration is reduced to very modest proportions and falls inside of 1,600 species, while, by treating Giningen and Parschlug as Pliocene instead of Miocene, he greatly exaggerates the importance of the former horizon at the expense of the latter. But the era of Miocene exploration had only just begun, and that formation did not give evidence of its present overshadowing supremacy until the labors of Heer and Ettingshausen began to reveal its true character. Pattison’s “ Chapters on Fossil Botany”? is a very superficial at- tempt to treat the subject in a popular way, and its only value is a table of British fossil plants, which, if it could be depended upon, would show the number then known to amount to 529, of which 279 were from the coal measures, 120 from the Tertiary, and 89 from the Oolite. A large number of works and memoirs on vegetable paleontology appeared in 1850, perhaps exceeding that of any previous year. Most of these, however, were of modest pretensions, and only two can prop- erly be classed among great works on the subject. These were Unger’s “Genera et species plantarum fossilium”®”’ and Gdéppert’s “Mono- graphie der fossilen Coniferen. ”?* As Unger had in 1845 published, in his “‘ Synopsis,” the first complete catalogue of fossil plants, so he was the first, in 1850, to publish a com- plete manual on the subject, for such is the nature of his ‘Genera et species.” This work is a shapely octavo volume of 668 pages, written wholly in Latin, and describing in systematic order every species of fossil plant known to the author. The total number thus described is 2,421, a large advance upon any previous estimate. Among the good features of the work are an enumeration of the genera under their proper orders and classes in a table that precedes the descriptive part, the reproduction, brought down to date, of his previously pub- lished “ Literatura nostri evi,” and a thorough species index at the end, distinguishing synonyms by printing them in italics. In his classi- “ fication he follows the natural order of development, beginning with the lowest forms. He declines to follow the English authorities in 235 Exposition chronologique des périodes de végétation et des flores diverses qui se sont succédé a la surface de la terre. Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot., 3° sér., Tome XI, 1849, pp. 285-338. 2368. R. Pattison. Chapters on Fossil Botany. London, 1849, 12mo. *7Franz Unger. Genera et species plantarum fossilium. Sumptibus Academia Casarce scientiarum. Vindobone, 1850. 8H. R. Géppert. Monographie der fossilen Coniferen. Eine im Jahre 1849, mit der goldenen Medaille und einer Premie von 150 Gulden gekronte Preisschrift. Leiden, 1850. Naturkundige Verhandelingen van de Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen te Haarlem. Tweede Verzameling, 6° Deel. Leiden, 1850. WARD.{ CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES. 423 treating Stigmaria as a dicotyledonous plant. He places the “Cy- cadeacew” between the Cryptogams and the Monocotyledons, but strangely separates them from the Conifer and Gnetacex, which he makes to follow the palms and precéde the forms now referred to the apetalous division ; though he does not recognize by special names the divisions of the Dicotyledons established by Jussieu. Still, in arrang- ing the orders, he follows the system of A. L. de J ussieu, and not that of Adrien de Jussieu. No illustrations accompany this work. In Géppert’s “ Monographie der fossilen Coniferen” we have another of those exhaustive works upon difficult subjects which characterize this author. When we say that it forms a quarto volume of 359 pages, with 58 plates, half of which are devoted to the illustration of internal structure as revealed by microscopic examination, we have given buta rude idea of the work. The first 67 pages relate entirely to living Conifers and fitly prepare the way for a thorough treatment of the fossil forms. To the treatise on fossil Conifers is prefixed an historical introduction of nearly a hundred pages, in which, as in the historical introduction to his “Systema filicum fossilium,” he marshals the litera- ture with great effect, and, as in the former case he found it impossible to confine himself to fern life, so in the present case he makes it the oc- casion for a thorough study of the history of man’s acquaintance not merely with coniferous fossil wood, but with fossil wood in general, which for ages remained the only known form of vegetable petrifaction. Besides the systematic description of all coniferous fossils known to him, the work contains a most valuable enumeration of localities where fossil wood, beds of coal, and fossil plants in general had been found from the year 1821 to the end of 1849, arranged primarily according to their position in the geological system. It also contains an arrange- ment of the species of Conifers according to geological horizons. The remainder of the numerous productions of the year 1850 must be passed over in silence, as their bare enumeration would consume con- siderable space, and without glancing at their special merits would add little to the reader’s knowledge respecting them. As has already been stated (supra, p. 379, 380) it was in 1850 that both Massalongo and Baron von Ettingshausen began their work in the domain of fossil plants, so that at this date no less than fourteen of those who have been men- tioned as leaders of the science were living and actively engaged in ex- tending its boundaries. We have thus passed in review the literature of fossil plants from the earliest records down to the close of the first half of the nineteenth century. The plan was, and still is, to continue this survey down to the present time, though confining attention more and more, as the literature increases in volume, to the most important works. But for the present purpose the carrying out of this plan is manifestly impos- sible from considerations of both space and of time, and it must be postponed until the work to which it was intended as an introduction 424 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. shall have been completed. This is specially to be regretted, as so little had been done down to 1850 to develop the paleobotanical resources of America. It is also true that at that date little had been done beyond the collection and accumulation of data for study. From the time when the practice of discussing imaginary problems without any data fell into disrepute the opposite and far more healthful tendency to treat facts as the end of research chiefly prevailed, until at length, at the time when we are compelled to close our record, a sufficiently large body of facts had been brought to light, and, through the organizing power of Unger, Brongniart, and Géppert, had been arranged for study and comparison, to render it somewhat profitable to speculate upon their probable meaning. In the decade that followed some such speculation was indulged in very cautiously, but this always resulted in the clearer recognition of the need of still more facts, and undoubtedly tended strongly to stimu- late research. Then commenced that systematic attack along the whole line of paleobotanical investigation. Ettingshausen’s system of nervation for the determination of dicotyledonous leaves may be re- garded as the result of the pressure, then irresistible, for the means of identifying the now vast accumulations of this important class of fos- sils. Heer’s researches into the fossil floras of Switzerland and of the arctic regions, and Lesquereux and Newberry’s investigations into the Dakota, Laramie, and Green River groups of the Western United States, together with Saporta’s ‘‘ Etudes” in the south of France, fur- nished more data than that of all the collections previously made from the later formations. The work of exploration still goes on. Saporta has elaborated the Jurassic of France, Grand’ Eury and Renault have thoroughly studied the Carboniferous of that country, as have Williamson and Carruthers that of England. Nathorst has opened up the subterranean floral treas- ures of Sweden, and Dawson those of British America, while Engelhardt, Hosius, Van der Marck, and Schenck have continued to investigate, without exhausting, the rich plant-beds of Germany. In America ac- tivity has not diminished, notwithstanding the advanced age of both the principal cultivators of this science. Large works, which have re- quired years in preparation in the hands of both Lesquereux and New- berry, are either on the eve of publication or are far advanced toward completion. Professor Fontaine, of the University of Virginia, has an important work on the Rhetic flora of Virginia in press, and is collect- ing some most interesting material for a second from the lower Creta- ceous or upper Jurassic of the same State. Large collections have lately been made by different parties of the United States Geological Survey, which are now in hand for examination, while fresh material is daily arriving at the National Museum from all parts of the country. Between eight and nine thousand species (as species are made) of fossil plants are now known to science, and the time must be near at WARD.) NOMENCLATURE AND CLASSIFICATION. 425 hand, if it has not already come, when this wide acquaintance with the ancient floras of the globe, if properly organized for study, will afford such aid to geological investigation as to command recognition, while the lessons which it supplies to the botanist and the biologist will be inestimable. VIII. NOMENCLATURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF FOSSIL PLANTS. Science does not consist in names, but it cannot well progress without them, and early in the history of every science a system of nomenclature always arises. Agaiu, a knowledge of natural objects consists largely in a knowledge of their relations, to obtain which systematic attempts at their methodical arrangement are among the first steps. However humble such efforts may at first be, they nevertheless constitute the beginnings of scientific classification. The objects may be arranged before names are given to them or to the groups they are seen to form, as in Bernard de Jussieu’s Garden of the Trianon. But usually the naming either precedes or closely accompanies the process of arrange- ment. Such at least has been the case with fossil plants. This fact, however, is to be here considered: That the science of botany proper antedated by far that of paleobotany. A few names were given to vegetable remains during the period when nobody believed that they either were themselves plants or represented plants. The reaction from this view, which took place at the beginning of the eighteenth century, in favor of the diluvian theory, carried its votaries much too far, and led them to think that every fossil plant must represent some known living one. This extremism had its fitting exemplifica- tion in Scheuchzer’s now obviously ridiculous attempt to classify the fossil plants of his time under the same rubrics as the living plants. The timely appearance of Tournefort’s “Elémens de Botanique,” in 1694, in which about the first real system of botanical classification was drawn up, afforded Scheuchzer the desired opportunity, and with- out waiting for the appearance of a second edition of his ‘“ Herbarium diluvianum,” he hastened to arrange all his species under Tournefort’s twenty-one classes, and published them, in 1816, in his “Oryctographia Helvetix” (pp. 203-247). In spite of his zeal, however, a large residue of unassigned fossil plants remained as a special “ Class unkantlicher Gewiichsen oder dero Theilen, welche uns von der Siindfluth ubrigge- blieben” (p. 236). This attempt was continued in the Hditio novissima of the “Herbarium diluvianum,” published in 1723 (Appendix). In this rash scheme Scheuchzer was not followed. Lhwyd, in 1699, had applied the term Lithoxylon to fossil wood, which, with the ex- ception of the impressions described by Major, mentioned on p. 389 (supra), was the only form of vegetable fossil known down to his time. 426 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. Volkmann (1720) adopts this term, and also Lithophyllon, while to all impressions of leaves and fronds he gives the general name of Litho- phytes, but he goes a long way in the direction of Scheuchzer in accept- ing the indigenous theory (supra, p. 395). Schultze (1755) treats the whole subject of plant impressions from a strictly mineralogical point of view, designating his figures by the old indigenous names of Scheuchzer and Volkmann; but the three general classes of petrifactions which he de- scribes without naming are of interest, as showing that he possessed a firm and rational grasp of the phenomena. They are: (1) Whole trees, large trunks, thick roots, and other similar woody matters transformed into stone; (2) impressions of twigs, leaves, flowers, etc., which consist either in whole or in part of the remains of the originals in a petrified state; (3) impressions of stems, plants, and shrubs in which no trace of their former parts is perceptible. Walch (1769) was the first to offer anything like a nomenclature of fossil plants, and although most of his names have now disappeared from the text-books, they still served a useful purpose during a long embryonic period in the history of the science. He called petrified trunks by the terms Lithodendron and Dendrolithus ; pieces of petrified wood Lithoxylon, and also Stelechites ; petrified roots, Rhizolithus. If the fossil remains bore a sufficient resemblance to any living tree or plant, it was called by the name of that plant, with its terminal sylla- ble changed into ites, as Daphnites, Sandalites, etc., a method which is still extensively employed in the creation of fossil genera of plants. Herbaceous plants were called Phytolithi, but he distinguished mere impressions of ‘these as Phytotypolithi. Fossil leaves were Lithobiblia, Bibliolithi, or Lithophylla. Phytobiblia referred to the leaves of herbs as opposed to those of trees. He mistook the Calamite for great reeds, and applied to them this name, as also that of Lithocalmi, the first of which has come down to us notwithstanding the misnomer. Fossil fruits he denominated Carpolithi, which is another term that has sur- vived in the long struggle for existence. Parkinson (1804) contented himself by giying a simple classification in English, although he refers to the Latin names which had been given to his groups by previous authors. His terminology was, (1) fossil trees ; (2) fossil plants; (3) fossil roots; (4) fossil stalks ; (5) fossil leaves ; (6) fossil fruits and seed-vessels. Steinhauer (1818) made four classes: Fossil wood (Lithoxylon), fossil fruits (Lithocarpt), fossil leaves (Lithophylli [sic]), and fossil flowers, of whose existence he seemed doubtful. He describes ten species, all of which he classes under the one genus, Phytolithus. Considering the mea- gerness of this presentation it is somewhat surprising that Steinhauer should have actually been the first to apply specific names to fossil plants, and thus to bring them fairly within the circle of natural his- tory sciences. It had thus taken more than a century to complete the cycle from the attempt of Scheuchzer to apply Tournefort’s classifica- warp.] SCHLOTHEIM’S CLASSIFICATION. 427 tion to fossil plants, through the “indigenous” and “exotic” stages incident to the diluvian theory and back to this humble beginning ona true scientific basis as a systematic: science, and it is properly from the appearance of this unpretentious memoir in an American scientific serial that paleobotany as a systematic branch of natural history should date (supra, p. 403). Baron von Schlotheim, in his “ Flora der Vorwelt” (1804), had made no attempt to assign names to the forms he so admirably figured, but confines himself to questioning and criticising the “indigenous” and “exotic” names which they had received from the early authors. “If the author had established a nomenclature for the plants which he de- scribed,” said Brongniart, *‘ his work would have become the basis of all the works which have since been produced on the same subject.” But it was scarcely too late for him still to acquire this honor, for between this first work and the appearance of his “ Petrefactenkunde” (1820) no important treatise on fossil plants other than Steinhauer’s memoir was published, and in this second work, which, as we have already seen, so far, at least, as the treatment of vegetable remains was concerned, was merely the continuation of the first which had been interrupted by political troubles, a systematic nomenclature was adopted and carried out in detail (supra, p. 404). He styled the entire vegetable kingdom sofar as fossils are concerned, P hytolithes, without, however, employing as Steinhauer had done, the term Phytolithus as a genus. Out of it he carves five classes, though he does not sodenominate them. Under two of these larger divisions fall subordinate ones which may be called orders the other three remaining undivided with an ordinal and even generic rank of theirown. The following is the outline of Schlotheim’s system: I. Dendrolithes.?“ A. Lithoxylithes. B. Lithanthracites. C. Bibliolithes. II. Botanilithes. Ili. Phytotypolithes. a.) Palmacites. b.) Casuarinites. ec.) Calamites. d.) Filicites. e.) Lycopodiolithes. J.) Poacites. IV. Carpolithes. V. Anthotypolithes. Under his Dendrolithes and Botanilithes no species are introduced, but certain forms are described, compared, and discussed. Especially 239 Prodrome, p. 3. 0 The anglicized forms are here employed as Schlotheim employed the German forms: Dendrolithen, Lithoxylithen, etc. 428 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. interesting are his notes on the Bibliolithes in which most of the dico- tyledonous leaves, then known, are referred to. Of Palmacites he describes fifteen species under regular systematic names. Of Casuari- nites he gives five species ; of Calamites, ten; of Filicites, twenty-three ; of Lycopodiolithes, five ; of Poacites, four; of Carpolithes, fifteen, and of Anthotypolithes, one. The science of paleobotany could therefore start from this date with seventy-eight species described and figured. Count Sternberg, in his “ Flora der Vorwelt,” established a large num- ber of genera, which he founded upon the most thorough investigation, a large share of which have resisted the destructive agencies of subse- quent research. Among these were Lepidodendron, Flabellaria, Annula- ria, Neggerathia,and Sphenopteris. His determinations were modest and sound, and he was able only in a few cases to refer the fossil forms to living genera, as in Osmunda, Asplenium, etc. But the most impor- tant departure effected in this work was in establishing vegetable paleontology for the first time upon a geognostic basis. He assumed three periods of vegetation : (1) an insular period characterized by the great coal plants; (2)a period characterized by the predominance of cycadean types, and (3)a period introduced by fucoidal remains and char- acterized by dicotyledonous forms. it will be at once perceived that these three periods correspond substantially with the Paleozoic, Meso- zoic, and Cenozoic ages of modern geology. Passing over the system of Martius, published in 1822,“ which, though having merits, has been received with less favor, we now come to that of Brongniart, the first draft of which also appeared in 1822.7 In this memoir all fossil plants were divided into four classes, ex- pressly so-called, viz., (1) stems whose internal organization is recog- nizable; (2) stems whose internal structure is not recognizable, but which are characterized by their external form; (3) stems joined to leaves or leaves only; (4) organs of fructification. The first class is divided into Exogenites and Endogenites, having the rank of genera. Under the second class, besides Calamites of Schlotheim, Syringoden- dron of Sternberg, and other genera, there occur for the first time the genera Sigillaria and Stigmaria. Sternberg’s Lepidodendron is divided into Sigillaria and Sagenaria, to the latter of which Sternberg’s name, Lepidodendron, is now generally preferred. Stigmaria is the equiva- lent of Sternberg’s Variolaria. Under the third class Lycopodites is substituted for Schlotheim’s Lycopodiolithes, Asterophyllites tor his Casuarinites, and Phyllites for his Bibliolithes. Schlotheim’s Filicites and Poacites are adhered to and the new genera, Sphenophyllites and Ficoides, are established. Under the fourth class Schlotheim’s two genera, Carpolithes and Antholithes, are retained. 1 C. F. Martius. De plantis nonnullis antediluvianis ope spec##rum inter tropicos viventium illustrandis. Denkschr. der kénigl. baierisch. botan. Gesellsch. in Regens- burg, Band II, 1822, pp. 121-147, Pl. I and II. °# Mémoires du Muséum Whistoire naturelle, Paris, Tome VIII, 1822, pp. 209-210. warp.] BRONGNIART’S CLASSIFICATION. 429 Without further discussing here the beautifully illustrated work of Artis (supra, p. 406) who attempted, for.the most part unsuccessfully, to create several new genera, we may now profitably compare the method just reviewed with the one put forth six years later by the same author in his “Prodrome.” On page 9 of that work he gives the key to his new classification in the following words: “La méthode que nous avons adoptée pour classer et dénominer ces fossiles, est fondée également sur ces rapprochements plus on moins intimes entre les plantes fossiles et les plantes vivantes.” Laying aside the former method, based chiefly upon the nature of the fossil, i. ¢., the part of the plant which hap- pened to be preserved, he now makes bold to assign all these forms to some of the great natural divisions of the vegetable kingdom as es- tablished by the Jussieus and other botanists. Butas already remarked (supra, p. 406), geognostic considerations and a firm faith in the laws of development led him to suggest some important modifications in this so-called natural method, as may be seen by comparing the following scheme from page 11 of the “Prodrome” and from page 20 of the “ Histoire des végétaux fossiles”: I. Agams. II. Cellular Cryptogams. III. Vascular Cryptogams. IV. Gymnospermous Phanerogams. V. Monocotyledonous angiospermous Phanerogams. VI. Dicotyledonous angiospermous Phanerogams. In the present state of botanical science Brongniart’s Agams would probably all be relegated to his second group, or Cellular Cryptogams, but in other respects. this classification is pre-eminently sound, and seems likely to be vindicated by the future progress of the science as against some of the recent systems emanating from the highest authorities. To these few general groups Brongniart proceeded to refer the fossil forms either as new and avowedly extinct genera, or, wherever possible, as extinct species of living genera. This was carried entirely through the system in his ‘ Prodrome,” and, so far as it went, the “ Histoire” afforded ample justification for his determinations in the form of full descriptions and thorough illustrations. This latter work was in a man- ner completed by his “Tableau” “° in 1849. The method of Brongniart has, with few exceptions, been adopted by subsequent paleobotanists, Une of these exceptions, however, is too important to be passed over. although it has already been considered in certain of its bearings. This is the system of Lindley and Hutton. These authors, apparently in order to emphasize their dissent from the theory of development, re- versed the order, placing the most highly developed forms first. They also placed the Conifer and Cycadez in the subclass Exogene, or 43 Tableau des genres de végétaux fos-iles considéré sous le point de vue de leur classification botanique et de leur distribution géologique. Paris, 1849. (Dictionnaire universel d’histoire naturelle. 430 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. Dicotyledons, without intimating that they differ in any essential re- spect from oaks or elms. The followin g is their system in outline: CLass IL.—VASCULARES, on FLOWERING PLANTS. Subclass 1. ExoGENz, or DICOTYLEDONS. Nymphezacez. Laurines. Leguminose. Ulmacez. Cupulifere. Betulinez. Salicinez. Myricee. Juglandes. Euphorbiacex. Acerines. Conifere. Cycadez. Doubtful. Subclass 2. ENDOGEN.Z, or MONOCOTYLEDONS. Marantacese. Asphodelee. Smilacez. Palme. Fluviales. Doubtful. Flowering plants which cannot be with certainty referred to either the monocotyledonous or the dicotyledonous classes. Ciass I1.—CELLULARES, or FLOWERLESS PLANTS. Equisetacez. Filices. Lycopodiacex. Musci. Characes. Alge. Plants the affinity of which is altogether uncertain. Stigmaria is put in the Euphorbiacee, Sphenophyllum in the Conifers, Annularia and Asterophyllites in the Dicotyledons, Neggerathia in the Palme, while Sigillaria and Voikmannia are classed with the last, or wholly uncertain group. With the rapid increase of material for the study of fossil plants the possibility of referring them to living families and genera has increased WARD.] THE NATURAL METHOD. 431 until at the present time nearly all the remains of the former vegeta- tion of the globe are readily assigned to their proper place in the gen- eral system adopted by botanists. Within a few years the number of dicotyledonous species has become so large that the attempt to identify them has been eminently successful. By the aid of a set of rules de- duced from the prolonged study of the nervation of leaves the genera of fossil Dicotyledons have been in great part made known. The only prominent question which this increased knowledge has raised in the department of classification has been with reference to the order in which the divisions of Jussieu should stand. It is, however, now gen- erally admitted that the order in which these three divisions of plants appeared was that of Adrien de Jussieu and not that of A. L. de J us- sieu,’ the Gamopetale constituting the most recent group of plants developed upon the globe. M. Schimper, while adhering to the old method in this respect for his systematic arrangement of the families, has nevertheless clearly shown that this does not represent the order of nature, and in his review of these groups“ he has arranged them according to the natural method. : It is thus that after two centuries of floundering in turbid waters the science of paleobotany has at last found itself in condition to take its proper place as a department of botany—the botany of the ancient world—in which, whatever geology may gain from it, it must rest upon geology as its solid foundation. IX. THE NATURAL METHOD AS INDICATED BY PALEO- BOTANY. The aid that the study of fossil plants affords in arriving at a natural classification of living plants is of prime importance, because it sup- plies at first hand the chief object for which all classification legiti- mately exists, viz., a knowledge of how existing forms came into being and why they are what they are. Much as we may delight in the discovery of new and beautiful forms, and may admire the objects in our possession as products of nature and pets of our specialties, we must, as investigators of nature, feel a higher interest in the great problems of their origin and development, whose solution in strictly scientific ways constitutes the proper aim of science itself. The method by which these problems can be most successfully attacked is the method of classification. Notwithstanding the contempt into which mere ‘‘systematists” have latterly fallen, the true scientific method is still and must ever be the systematic method. The real cause for the present disdain of systematists, lies in the mistaken spirit in which Adrien de Jussieu. Cours élémentaire d’histoire naturelle. Botanique. Paris, 1840, p. 395. 46 Traité de Pal. vég., Tome I, pp. 83-87 432 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. system-making has been so commonly conducted. Systems of classifi- cation had come to be regarded as the end of science, when they are at best only the means. But it is not to be wondered at that this was so, since it was not until quite recently that science could be fairly said to have any end other than to collect facts and build systems. Not until the laws of genetic dependence among the forms of organized life, as taught by Lamarck in 1809 and enforced by Darwin in 1859, had begun to be recognized within the last twenty years, was any such grand re- sult thought possible as that of ever finding out how existing forms have come to be what they are. With the growth of this conception all attempts at classification gradually became revolutionized in their spirit and aim, and from being merely logical and ideal they tended to become practical and real. Whereas formerly some collected facts for the sake of facts, and others built systems for the sake of systems, now all collect facts for the sake of systematizing them and systematize them in order to learn what they teach; for neither without facts nor with- out system can we ever arrive at truth. It is customary with botanists to speak of artificial systems of classifi- cation as contrasted with the natural system. It is commonly supposed that the system of Linnzus was wholly artifical, and the impression equally prevails that that of Jussieu was the true natural one. Butin the progress of human discovery no such sudden leap ever takes place. The truth is that all systems have aimed to be natural and that none have wholly succeeded. But there has been progress in the concep- tion of what constitutes a natural system. The most that the older bot- anists aimed to secure was a logical system, and it was supposed that the logical necessarily represented the natural. “ 1. TYPES OF VEGETATION, The vegetation of the globe has always been divided into certain ob- vious groups which may be called types, the word “type” being here used in a very general and indefinite way. These types of vegetation have various systematic values. The following table contains the prin- cipal ones, with a brief explanation accompanying each: Synoptical View of the Types. CRYPTOGAMS.—Flowerless plants. Cellular Cryptogams.—Devoid of vessels or vascular bundles; e. g., sea-weeds, mosses. Vascular Cryptogams.—Having vascular bundles—fibers, ducts, ete. Filices.—Ferns. ELhizocarpee.—Inconspicuous plants, of interest chiefly as ap- pearing to form the transition from the Cryptogams to the Phenogams through the Cycadacee; e. g-, Marsilia, Sal- vinia, Azolla. WARD.] TYPES OF VEGETATION. 433 CRYPTOGAMS.—Flowerless plants—Continued. Equisetinew.—Rush like plants, with whorls of leafless branches; é. g., Calamites, scouring rushes. LIycopodinee.—Plants with scaly stems or trunks; e. g., Lepi- dodendron, club-mosses. Ligulatce.—Inconspicuous plants, of interest chiefly as appear- ing to form the transition from the Cryptogams to the Phe- nogams through the Coniferx; e. g., Isoetes. PH2ZNOGAMS.—Flowering plants. Gymnosperms.—Plants having their ovaries open and the ovules and seeds naked or exposed. Cycadacew.—Trees midway in general aspect between tree-ferns and palms; ¢. g., sago palm. Conifere.—The pine family ; ¢. g., pine, fir, cedar, yew, etc. Gnetacee.—A. small family of leafless plants, interesting chiefly as appearing to form the transition from the Equiselines to the Dicotyledons, through the Casuarine; e.g., Ephedra antisy philitica. ANGIOSPERMS.—Plants having their ovules and seeds protected by closed ovaries. Monocotyledons.—Plants that come up with a single blade, or coty- ledon; stems endogengus; e. g., grass, lily, palm. Dicotyledons.—Plants that come up with two leaves, or cotyledons; stems exogenous. Apetale or Monochlamydee.—Plants having but one floral en- velope (a calyx but no corolla); ¢. g., oak, willow. Polypetale.—Plants having two floral envelopes (a calyx and a corolla), the corolla consisting of separate petals ; ¢. g., rose, magnolia, maple. Gamopetale or Monopetale.—Plants having two floral envel- opes, the corolla consisting of a single piece, or petal; e¢. g., honeysuckle, catalpa, trumpet-flower. The names contained in this table are the modern ones, and other terms with, perhaps, about the same meaning will be found in the sys- tems of classification of the older botanists, while in some such systems quite different groups are recognized as primary. 2. THE LINNASAN SYSTEM. The history of the progress made by botanists proper, without the aid of paleontology, in the direction of the natural method, did space per- mit, would well repay examination. I shall confine myself to presenting the three principal systems in a much-abridged form, as perhaps the most satisfactory way in which that progress can be indicated. The systems to which I refer are those, respectively, of Linnzus, of A. L. de Jussieu and of Adrien de Jussieu. The first of these, the system of Linnzeus, is introduced merely to show that it is not altogether an arti- GEOL 84——28 434 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. ficial one, but, like all the rest, an effort at real classification. More clearly to indicate this I have arranged it in logical form, and, for brev- ity’s sake, have introduced a number of non-Linnzan terms: The Linnean system. ; Oryptogamia ... 220.2222. eee ee cece cee eee cere teen teen e cee e ene ee Cryptogamia. Polygamia. Diecia. Monecia. (Gynandria ... ..--.--.2----eeeeeeeee----- Gynandria. ( ae DiGlinde: 32s caw cccus oceania eawew es wines Gane Eee Seca tees ‘ Polyadelphia. Desmandria --..-.-.--- Dialelphia. Monadelphia. Anisan-§ Tetradynamia. dria, ; Ey uee es olyandria. Pheno- Toseandne: Bamps Dodecandria. Hermaphrodite { Eleutherogynia Decandria. Enneandria. Eleutheran- Octandria. dria. Isandria< Heptandria. Hexandria. Pentandria. Tetrandria. Triandria. Diandria. L L { L \ Monandria. All who are familiar with the Linnean system will, of course, ob- serve that the order is here inverted. The names of the successively larger groups, with theexception of the terms ‘“ Cryptogamia” and “ Phe- nogamia,” are merely invented to obviate the necessity of describing those groups. This form of presentation clearly shows to how large an extent Linnzus aimed at a logical classification. 3. SYSTEMS OF THE JUSSIEUS. We will next glance at the systems of the Jussieus. Bernard de Jussieu has merely left us his catalogue of the garden of Trianon, but this enigmatic list of names is regarded by modern botanists as containing the germ of all later systems. Guided by it, his nephew, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, proceeded to elaborate the celebrated Jus- sizean system, of which a mere outline is presented in the following table : System of A. L. de Jussieu. Acotyledons. Monocotyledons. Apetala. Monopetala. Polypetale. Dicline. This system, as will be observed, rests primarily upon the number of cotyledons, and in making the Cryptogams co-ordinate with the Mono- cotyledons and the Dicotyledons fails to draw the great dividing line which Linneus clearly perceived between the Cryptogamic and the Phenogamic series. Dicotyledons WARD.] BOTANICAL SYSTEMS, 435 Tn re-elaborating it, his son, Adrien, adhered to this defect, but intro- duced some improvements. We will next glance at this latest form of the Jussizan system: System of Adrien de Jussieu. Acotyledons. Monocotyledons. an Gymnosperms. Diclinw........... | Angiosperms. Dicotyledons .. . Apetale. Hermaphrodite ... ? Polypetale. Monopetale. In this case we see a very great advance in the recognition of the Gymnosperms. In transposing the Polypetale and Monopetale# he also departed from the views of his father, and in this modern botanists have not followed him, although, as remarked above (p. 431), this change would undoubtedly be in the direction of a true natural system. 4. SYSTEM OF MODERN BOTANISTS. From the systems of the Jussieus to that which prevails among bot- anists of the present day the transition is slight. Linneus’s Crypto- gamic and Phenogamic series are restored; the terms “ Exogens” and “ Endogens” are introduced as synonymous with ** Dicotyledons” and “ Monocotyledons,” of which they take precedence; the Gymnosperms are recognized, and A. L. de Jussieu’s order is restored for the Poly- petalz and Monopetale, for which latter name that of “ Gamopet- ale” is coming to be preferred, while for Apetale” the term Mono- chlamydee is substituted by some. The system, then, is substantially as follows: Cryptogams. ( Endogens, or Monocotyledons. Gymno- Cycadacee. Conifers. sperms. Phenogams.¢ Exogens, or Gnetacee. Dicotyledons. : Apetale, or Monochlamydez. i Angio- Monopetala, or Gamopetale. See Polypetale. All modern text-books invert the order and begin with the Pheno- gams, but whether advisable or not this is intended merely to facilitate study, the higher forms being easier of comprehension, and does not at all imply that our leading botanists believe this to have been the order in which plants have developed. This inversion of the order, how- ever, shows how completely the notion of development is ignored in modern botany, and the system throughout rests upon the evidence furnished by the organs of the plants as they are understood. It is proper to say that at the present. time quite a large body of the most thorough students of vegetal embryology and histology, especially in Germany, have rejected much of this system, and especially that which concerns the Gymnosperms. These they prove in the most satisfactory 436 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. manner to constitute a lower type than any other of the Phznogams, and they conclude that they form a more or less natural transition from the Cryptogams to the Phenogams, between which they place them. This result is most gratifying to the paleontologist, fur nearly or quite every work on fossil plants gives the Gymnosperms this position at the base of the Phenogamic series, so sagaciously assigned to it by Brong- niart. Paleobotanists have been compelled to do this in the face of the prevailing botanical systems, because this is the position which they are found to occupy in the ascending strata of the earth’s crust. It is astonishing that botanists could have remained so indifferent to such a weighty fact, and it is certainly most instructive to find the geological record, so long unheeded, confirmed at last by the facts revealed in living plants. There is no evidence that those who have thus confirmed it were in the least influenced by it, and Sachs is as silent as to paleon- tology as is Bentham or Gray. The founders and perfectors of the prevailing system of botanical classification have not been influenced in any marked degree by the idea of development in vegetable life. Few of the earlier ones had ever heard of development, and those who had heard of it rejected it as a visionary theory. This system had become established long before the doctrine of the fixity of species had received a shock, for although La- marck, himself a botanist, had sown the seed of its ultimate overthrow, still it required half a century for this seed to germinate, and it was during this half century that the Jussiean system was supplanting the Linnean and gaining a firm foothold. It is our special task to examine this system by the light of the now universally accepted laws of development and to see in how far it con- forms to those laws. We shall see that, with a few important excep- tions and some unimportant ones, this purely logical classification is in substantial harmony with what we now believe to be the order de- manded by the law of descent—an encouraging fact as showing that natural truth may often be correctly discerned by purely rational pro- cesses. Had Jussieu been told that the Monocotyledons and Dicotyle- dons were the direct descendants of the Acotyledons he would probably have treated the proposition with contempt. In his system the latter were placed before the former merely because they represented a lower grade of organization, and it was the relative grades of organization that determined the position of the minor as well as of the major groups throughout the Jussizan system. 5. MODIFIED SYSTEM PROPOSED. Now, therefore, that we have been compelled, from an entirely differ- ent class of evidence, to accept the fact of descent, we are glad to find that this does not wholly revolutionize the system arrived at from con- siderations of structure alone, while at the same time we must claim that this substantial agreement furnishes a strong corroboration of the theory of descent. WARD.] - BOTANICAL SYSTEMS, 437 The following table may be taken to represent, so far as the tabular form will permit, the system of classification called for by the present known facts of structural botany and of paleontology. Assumed natural system. Cryptogams. Cycadaces. Gymnosperms. 2 Conifers. Gnetacez. Phenogams. Monocotyledons. ‘ Apetala. Angiosperms.. Dicotyledons. 2 Polypetale. Gamopetale. A glance at this table will show that the most important respect in which it differs from the one last examined 1s in the position and rank of the Gymnosperms. Whereas there the Gymnosperms and Angio- sperms have only the rank of subclasses under the class Exogens, or Dicotyledons, they here assume the rank of classes, and the Monocotyle- dons and Dicotyledons are reduced to subclasses under the class An- giosperms. The Gymnosperms are thus taken out of the Dicotyledons entirely. This is done because the distinction of open and closed ovaries is regarded as a class distinction, and the Monocotyledons are as truly Angiosperms as are the Dicotyledons, since they possess the closed ovary; because the Gymnosperms are not dicotyledonous, the number of cotyle- dons varying from one to fifteen ; and because, while all Gymnosperms are not strictly exogenous nor all Monocotyledons strietly endogenous, the woody structure of the Conifere differs fundamentally from that of all dicotyledonous plants. Buta discussion of these points would carry us too far. It will also be perceived that the order proposed by Adrien de Jus- sieu for the divisions of the Dicotyledons is here adopted, the reasons for which have already been referred to and will receive more special attention hereafter. 6. CLASSIFICATION OF THE CRYPTOGAMS. Thus far we have considered the Cryptogams as an undivided group of plants; but they too are capable of subdivision. The classification of the Cryptogams, however, is still in its infantile stage and is the problem which is at this moment most earnestly claiming the attention of advanced botanists. The subject is too special to be entered into here, and I shall confine myself to naming a few of the groups which modern investigation has shown to throw. some light upon the more general problem of descent in plant life. That the first proper plants were cellular Cryptogams there is no question, and to that class still belong a great number and variety of forms, the seaweeds, fresh-water alge, fungi, lichens, liverworts, mosses, etc. From these have in all probability descended the vascular Crypto- 438 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. gams, now chiefly represented by our ferns, club mosses, and scouring rushes. Leaving the cellular Cryptogams undivided, we will consider some of the groups of the vascular Cryptogams. The great preponder- ance of these forms of vegetal life throughout Paleozoic time renders this necessary, notwithstanding their insignificance at the present epoch. As in the present, so throughout the past, the vascular Cryptogams are prominently divided into three great groups, which may be roughly designated asthe fern group, the Calamite group, and the Lepidodendron group. Ancient ferns differed from those with which we are acquainted in being nearly all arborescent, or tree-ferns. The great Calamites of the coal-measures are now represented solely by our genus Hquisetum, or scouring rush, while the Lepidodendron had degenerated into our little ground-pines and club-mosses (Lycopodium). A careful study of the fossil remains of the Calamites and lepido- dendroid growths of the Carboniferous period shows clearly that they were then much more closely related to each other than are the present Equisetaceze and Lycopodiacex, and there can be little doubt that strictly intermediate forms existed. We may therefore class them together under a larger general group, to which we will give the name Lepidophytes. There is also a suggestive resemblance between some of the tree-ferns and certain of the Calamites, so that far back in that hoary antiquity of vegetable life we find a certain homogeneity and monotony, which show that those plant-forms as we now understand them were to a large extent undifferentiated and blended together. Two small orders of cryptogamic vegetation, too rare to be frequent in a fossil state, and, indeed, unless formerly much more robust than now, too frail to admit of preservation except under the most favorable circumstances, possess for the modern cryptogamic systematist an extra- ordinary interest. These are the Rhizocarpex, or pepperworts, now chiefly represented by Salvinia, Marsilia, and Azolla, and the Ligulate, to which belong only Isoetes, the quillworts, and Selaginella. The reason for this special interest lies in the fact that the plants of these two orders, alone of all Cryptogams, possess characters which seem to mark the transition from the cryptogamic mode of reproduction to that of the Gymnosperms. In this the Rhizocarpee are supposed to approach more closely to the Cycadacee, while the Ligulate simulate rather the Conifer. On account of this exceptional prominence of these two orders I give them a separate place in the following table of classifica- tion of the Cryptogams: Cellular Cryptogams. Filiciner...... 1 ee (Ferns). izocarpes. Vascular Cryptogams. Equisetine. Lepidophyte.. 2 Lycopodinex. Ligulate. By uniting this table with the one last examined a somewhat com- WaRD.] PLANT LIFE OF THE GLOBE, 439 plete view of the classification warranted by the present knowledge of plant life may be gained. 7. GEOGNOSTICO—BOTANICAL VIEW OF THE PLANT LIFE OF THE GLOBE. We will now attempt to marshal in as convenient a form as possible the principal facts which paleontology and modern botany afford, with a view to examining their bearings upon the problem of classification jn general and upon those of descent and development in particular. In doing this we are compelled to depend upon the weight of evidence - furnished by the number of species alone, since it is impossible to take account of the relative predominance of species, however great and important the differences may be in this respect. The number of species really marks the degree of variety or multiplicity, which cer- tainly forms a rude index to the degree of abundance or prominence. Where a number of types are compared this difference in their degree of variety may fairly be assumed to apply to all alike, and the conclusions thus drawn will be measurably accnrate; and in general this multiplicity of varying forms under larger types may be taken in a manner to rep- resent the relative exuberance or luxuriance of the type, and thus roughly to indicate its relative predominance as a form of vegetation. In all attempts to argue from paleontology allowance must, of course, be made for the imperfection of the geological record, and in no de- partment is this imperfection greater than in that of plants. Yet it is certainly remarkable how large a portion of the earth’s surface has, at one epoch or another, presented the conditions which have proved favorable to the preservation of vegetable remains. Our surprise at this is heightened when we contemplate the present state of the globe upon which that condition seems scarcely to exist. We know that the great land areas of our continents are wholly incapable of preserving the leaves that annually fall upon them, and it is only in the quiet beds of rivers that have reached their base level, or in their deltas, or else in localities where tufa-laden spring water flows over vegetation, or lastly, in our great swamps, that such a result is possible. This last condition is believed to furnish the key to the solution of the problem of most of the ancient vegetable deposits, but the limits of this paper forbid me to enter into a discussion of this subject. The following table presents in a rough manner the history of the introduction of plant life upon the globe as revealed by the remains that have actually been discovered. It has been compiled from about 25,000 species slips which have been the product of nearly two years’ labor in cataloguing the literature of Paleobotany. Although this work is by no means completed, still, it embraces nearly all the more recent and more important works on the subject, and hence cannot fall far short of affording a correct view of the present state of knowledge of the fossil flora of the globe. 440 SKETCH OF PALEOBUTANY. Number of species of each of the principal types of vegetation that have been found fossil in sible to ascertain; together with the percentage that CRYPTOGAMS. VASCULAR. Geological formations. | Cellular. Rhi ads izocar- | Equiseti- | Lycopodi- . Ferns. pee. ame: eae Ligulates. Num-| Per |Num:| Per |Num-| Per |Num-| Per |Num-| Per |Num-) Per ber. | cent.| ber. | cent.| ber. | cent.| ber. | cent.) ber. | cent.| ber. | cent. Present time ....-..----- 35,000 |23. 89 |3,000 | 2.05 | 100 | 0.07 30 | 0.02} 500] 0.84 | 400 | 0.27 : Quaternary .-.....-- 27 | 33.3 |) DS lesen cease! 2] 2.5 |... eee -feee eee |e ones 3 Amber.... ...-- OT | bee lowes leereay < ; | Pliocene......--].-----|.----- 3] 3. 8 | & | Miocene: 16865) 87| 2 3\s Oligocene. . 17| 22). 17] 2. © | & | Green River. 5] 2.2 8} 3. a 71 | 10.3 22) 38. 8| 25 7) & , | Laramie. . 13 | 3.9 23) 6.9 - g Senonian - 23 | 6.5 73 | 20.6 © | Turonian ...... 1 | 20.0 1 | 20.0 |. 8 Cenomanian 8 | 3.3 38 | 15.5 # | Dakota 1] 0.5 7| 3.3 2 che Soatealincencd 10 | 27.8 _ | O | Urgonian. ......|....--|.----- ; g ix] 2/3 o DQ a| 4 5 6 6 & | Keuper.....-...]..--.-|...--- | Muschelkalk -.. & |BunterSandstein|......|...... | Permian ...........- ¢ | Carboniferous. ...... ‘a | Subcarboniferonus . .. S |Devonian .....-- © | Upper Silurian. . 7 Lower Silurian Cambrian c.cccesce<-| 2 (10000 |oecwcnjewscnc| coswes [sceewelsnemea|eceees WARD.] PLANT LIFE OF THE GLOBE. 441 each geological formation, also the number existing at the present time as nearly as it is pos- each type forms of the total flora of each formation. PHANOGAMS. GYMNOSPERMS. ANGROSPERMB. Total. Dicotyledons. Cycadacem.| Coniferm. | Gnetaces. a rons : Apetalx. | Polypetale. |Gamopetale. Num-| Per | Num-| Per | Num-| Per | Num-| Per | Num-| Per | Num-; Per | Num-| Per | Num- ber. | cent.| ber. |cent.| ber. | cent.| ber. |cent.| ber. |cent.| ber. | cent.) ber. | cent.| ber. 75 | 0.05 300 | 0. 24 40 | 0.03 |20, 000 /13. 65 |12, 000 | 8.19 |35, 000 ‘28, 89 40, 000 |27. 31 |146, 445 | ii 27 | 33.3 8| 9.9 7| 8&7 81 3.0 5| 7.5 1/15 7 | 10.4 67 9.2 32|32.6| 31/316] 10] 10.2 98 8.9] 926 | 27.1] 1,064) 35.0| 346|11.3| 3,046 10.6 | 256] 83.1] '259]33.6| 70] 91] |772 9.2| 85 | 37.1 73| 31.9} 20] 87] 229 16.8| 162 23.6 | 221 | 32.1 59| 86 689 5.9| 57| 47.9] 39] 328 5|/ 42! 19 . 9.91 125] 37.5] 94/25.2] 30] 90) 333 : 5.1 5.1 ya “OB 2.9 7| 3.3 2.4 2 2) 5.5 5.5 : 21 | 19.4 5.6 6 | 15.4 5.1 43 | 35.5 17) 26.2] 17 | 26.2 |....2.|...2.-[eeee---[eee ee 116 | 27.7 43.3 26 | 20.5 15 | 36.6 442 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. Before entering upon a general survey of the development of plant life as shown in this merely numerical exhibit, it will be necessary to refer the reader to three diagrams (plates LVI, LVII, LVIII), which have been prepared with a view to rendering the principal facts embraced in the table more readily intelligible, and then to discuss each of the diagrams separately, keeping the numerical data constantly in view. For the execution of these diagrams I am indebted to Ensign Everett Hayden, United States Navy, on duty at the National Museum in the Department of Fossil Plants, who has not only plotted and drawn them, but has aided me greatly in selecting from among the many possible modes of graphic illustration the ones which, as I believe, most success- fully serve this purpose. In all the diagrams an effort is made, of course in an approximate and very rude manner, to indicate time-measures in terms of thickness of strata, this being, however imperfect, certainly the only standard attainable. Ina lecture delivered at the National Museum on Feb- ruary 24, 1883, on Plant Life of the Globe, past and present, enlarged diagrams having a similar object to those introduced here were. used for illustration. The data then obtainable for their preparation were very defective, and the time-measures were taken from Dana’s “ Man- ual of Geology.” Those who may remember them, from notes taken or otherwise, will observe that in this latter respect the accompanying dia- grams differ widely from the ones presented on that occasion. Upon investigation it appears that the views of geologists generally have changed materially since the appearance of the last edition of that work, and recent observations have tended to show that the thickness formerly assigned to Mesozoic, and especially to Tertiary, strata was much too small in proportion to that assigned to Paleozoic, and especi- ally to Silurian strata. After consultation upon this subject with the Hon. J. W. Powell, Director of the Survey, it was decided that nearly equal vertical space might be given to each of the following formations, or groups: 1, Cambrian; 2, Silurian; 3, Devonian; 4, Permo-Carboni- ferous ; 5, Jura-Trias ; 6, Cretaceous; 7, Eocene; 8, Mio-Pliocene. These have accordingly been taken as furnishing the scale of time equivalents, and all the diagrams have been drawn to this scale. The development of vegetable life through geologic time may be dis- cussed from three somewhat distinct points of view. We may, in the first place, consider each of the principal types of vegetation at each of the geologic periods in which it occurs solely with reference to its relative importance in the combined flora of that epoch. This is undoubtedly the most important point of view from which the subject can be contem plated, and has accordingly been considered first. It is clear that the data for this must consist, not in the actual number of species at each horizon, but in the proportion, or percentage, which this number forms of the total number found at such horizon. Diagram No. I is, therefore, based upon these percentages as given in the foregoing table. U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CR er i O1GrANisS CELLULAR VASCULAR GYM GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS : so a ee Rhizocarp Equisec Filices and Lycopod Cycadaceae [ 1 ib | o | PRESENT TIME QUAT ERNARY L Pliocene oO ———— N © J, Miocene fe fs | ASTIN A ee Oligocene Eocene Paleocene Laramie CRETACEOUS! Cenomanmian Lu Gault O L yan N Neocomian Oo et Wealden L Coral = | JURASSIC | Golite es [ Lias Rheuuc | Keuper | TRIASSIC. | Muschelkalk Buntersandst Permian PERMO Carboniferous \ CARBONIF Sub-carbomel Joe Se = eo we es N Oo DEVONIAN Q o q a = See ae Upper SILURIAN | | | Lower CAMBRIAN EH. del FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PL.LV1 TP ACNE EN 1) (Cry eACENi ES ISPERMS AGN Gel®: oul i RMS MONOCOTYLEDONS PIGOTT YL ED ONS Comferae and weese Gnetaceae Apetalae Polvpetalae Gamopetalae = - ~ ) | Julius Bien & Co Lith WARD.] DISCUSSION OF DIAGRAMS, 443 In the second place, we can consider each type of vegetation by and in itself, with a view to determining the geological age in which it first made its appearance, the general nature of its progress through time, and the period of its maximum actual development as an element of the vegetation. Such a presentation, however, when based on the number of species actually found at each horizon, exhibits very great fluctua- tions, due to the irregularities in the record. These irregularities de- pend chiefly upon conditions quite independent of the real presence or abundance of the plants in any formation. These conditions are many, but the principal ones may be embraced under three heads: 1. The plants must have existed at the period in question. This is the legiti- mate assumption and alone gives value to the diagram. 2. The condi- tions for their preservation and then for their subsequent exposure must have occurred. Any one can see how exceedingly irregular must be these delicate conditions at different ages of the world. 3. The locali- ties in which they are embedded must have been discovered and worked by the paleontologist. This is the great contingency which stands in the way of our acquaintance with any flora, but although doubtless ‘ more potent than the one last named, it possesses the merit of possible removal through the industry of man. With all these detractions from its value this form of illustrating the geological record is nevertheless presented in Diagram No. II. In the third place, we may, by a legitimate exercise of the rational method of science, construct a scheme of illustration, based indeed upon these facts as indispensable landmarks, yet recognizing the law of uni- formity in natural processes that constitutes the primary postulate of science itself, which shall, to a large extent, eliminate the error of the defective record and present a rational and highly probable view of the true development. By asecond act of ratiocination the probable period of first appearance of each type of vegetation may be deduced from the fact as to the earliest point at which it has actually been discovered, and thus an approach far nearer, at least, to the true history of plants - than is possible by the last-named method may be made. Diagram No. III presents the subject from this third point of view. Discussion of Diagram No. I—In this diagram the Cryptogams are represented in buff tints and the Phanerogams in purple, with deeper shades for the successively higher types of each series. The diagram is based upon the assumption of the proportionate representation of types in the known floras of each age. Collectors of fossil plants never select. They take everything they find and make no attempt to find particular forms. If, therefore, the chances of preservation of different kinds of plants were equal the chances of finding any particular kind would de- pend upon its actual degree of abundance in the given flora. Con- versely, the degree to which any type of plants is represented in the collections made would be a fair measure of such abundance or of the relative prominence of the type in the flora of the given epoch. How- 444 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. ever imperfectly such a flora was represented in the collections, this re- lation would theoretically hold, and thus the imperfection of the geolog- ical record would be eliminated so long as it was only contemplated from this relative stand-point. And although it is not true that all kinds of plants stand an equal chance of preservation, still the classi- fication of plants according to their adaptability to preservation is wholly different from their systematic botanical classification and trav- erses the latter in such a manner as rarely‘to coincide with its bound- ary lines or to exclude any entire group from the possibility of being rep- resented in the fossilstate. Nevertheless, such omissions, orat least very disproportionate representations, will occur and must be allowed for. The theory also fails where a flora is only very meagerly represented, and the smaller the representation the less applicable the principle. This accounts for certain great irregularities in the diagram, which are great- cst in the least adequately represented formations. Such defects will be readily rectified by the intelligent student of the diagram, and it was thought better to leave this to his judgment than to attempt to overcome the defects by an arbitrary reduction of irregularities. The numerical table will aid in making the proper allowance in each case by indicat ing, as the diagram cannot do, the poorly-represented horizons. Upon the whole this diagram may be regarded as trustworthy in intelligent hands and as fairly indicating all that is claimed for it.. That vegetable life should have preceded animal life is a fair deduction from all that we know of these two kingdoms of nature, and, not to speak of the much-disputed Hozoon Canadense of Canadian so-called Azoic rock, we at least have Oldhamia in the Cambrian, whose organic character is quite generally admitted. This and other facts give weight to the view that the dark carbonaceous substance found in the Lauren. tian has been the result of accumulated vegetable matter of marine ori- gin, but too frail in structure to admit of preservation in any other form. Graphite, too, which is a pure form of carbon, and thus almost demon- strates vegetable origin, is found below the Silurian. But, dismissing these speculations and admitting the somewhat doubtfal vegetable ; character of Oldhamia, we actually have organized plants, marine alge, preserved in the Lower Silurian and even at its base. Such are Bilo- bites rugosa, Chondrites antiquus, and Sphaerococcites Scharyanus. The Cellular Cryptogams are thus fairly introduced at points lower than that of the appearance of any higher type of vegetation, and by the close of the Silurian fifty species had made their appearance, constituting 85 per cent of all the life of that epoch as thus far found. Not only in this case, but all through the series, the order in which these great types of vegetation are here drawn up agrees substantially with that of their appearance on the globe, as shown by actual specimens collected and determined. If the system of classification had been based exclu- sively upon paleontological data, there would be no force in this, but, as T have shown, it is in large measure that of botanists proper who never WARD.) DISCUSSION OF DIAGRAMS, 445 argue from paleontology, and most of the points in which it differs from accepted botanical systems have been independently confirmed by structural botanists. More remarkable still, perhaps, than the early appearance of marine alge is that of certain well-organized vascular plants that must have inhabited the land. Among the earliest forms of terrestrial vegetation we find the ferns, those graceful forms whose green, airy fronds are still the delight of every judge of natural beauty. We have at least one well-authenticated species in the Silurian—Zopteris Morierii of Saporta— found by Moriére a few years ago at the base of the Middle Silurian, a gilt figure of which its namer has made the frontispiece of one of his last works.** The fern may be almost taken to represent the primary form of the vegetative process. Its delicate spray resembles, most of all plant-forms, the exquisite frost-work which we see on our windows on a cold morning. The physicists tell us that these latter are the result of molecular activities and consist in the deposit of solidified molecules of invisible vapor. Plant-growth consists in the deposit of solidified carbon molecules upon the growing surfaces of plants. Perhaps, then, we should not wonder at the resemblance between the earliest forms of plant life and those other forms which nature creates by the action of the same principle, and which the chemist can imitate in certain modes of precipitation. In the Devonian we have 79 species of ferns, and this type of vegeta- tion reaches its maximum in the Carboniferous epoch, which, if we ex- tend it to include the Subcarboniferous and the Permian, furnishes 877 species, forming nearly 45 per cent of the total flora of that epoch. There are good reasons for supposing that during this age the ferns were nearly all arborescent and really formed a large part of the Car- boniferous forests. From this time forward they declined both in num- ber and vigor until, at the present time, they are only 2 per cent of the vegetation of the globe, and in nearly all cases consist of low herbaceous plants, almost valueless except for their singular beauty. Let us next consider the type which is here denominated the Hquiseti- nee. At the present time the natural order Hquisetacee embraces all the plants of this group, and they are very few indeed and insignificant in size, but in the Carboniferous age they formed nearly 10 per cent of the vegetation, and furnished the great Calamites, which clearly show that they were no mean element in the forest growth of that period. Certain plants of this group—Sphenophyllum primevum, Annularia Romingerti— were found by Mr. Lesquereux in the Cincinnati group of the Silurian, an horizon, perhaps, lower than that of Hopteris, and we must therefore regard this type as of exceedingly ancient origin. The Calamites dis- appear entirely in Mesozoic time and the type dwindles into insignifi- cance. 246,e Monde des Plantes avant l’apparition de homme. Paris, 1879. (See pp. 35, 166.) 446 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. The Lycopodinee, now represented by the natural order Lycopodiacee, and constituting little more than one-third of 1 per cent of the living vegetation of the globe, embraced in the Carboniferous epoch the lepi- dodendroid group. About four hundred species of these plants have been described from the Subcarboniferous to the Permian, and during their reign they formed nearly one-fourth of the vegetation of the globe. They were the largest forest trees of their time, and sometimes attained a great size, though, of course, nothing approaching the giants of our present forests. This ancient, or archaic, type disappears entirely with the Permian, and never reappears. Its degenerate descendants con- tinue down to the present, chiefly in the form of club mosses, of which considerable variety exists. The two remaining groups of cryptogamic plants, the Rhizocarpee and the Ligulate, possess little paleontological importance, although the number of species, including spore-cases, that have been referred to the former of these orders has now reached seventeen, four of which are Paleozoic (Devonian and Subcarboniferous) and four Mesozoic. These, as well as most of the Miocene species, belong to the genus Salvinia or one nearly allied to it (Protosalvinia Dawson), although one Pilularia has been found at Giningen, and a true Marsilia occurs in an undescribed collection now in my hands, made by Captain Bendire in the Miocene of the John Day Kiver region, Oregon, and which I propose to call Mar- silia Bendirei, should there prove to be no inaccuracy in this determi- nation. As regards the Ligulate, they are still less frequent in the fossil state, and are thus far represented only by the two very dissimilar genera, Selaginella and Isoetes. Unless, as has been affirmed, the former of these genera has its representatives in the Carboniferous, the group is not found lower than the Cenomanian of Atane, Greenland, where Heer has detected his Selaginella arctica. Mr. Lesquereux has described three species of this genus in the Laramie group, and the same author has found a true Isoetes in our Green River Eocene, at Florissant, Colo- tado. Two more species of Isoetes from the Miocene of Europe exhaust the enumeration, making in all only seven species of Ligulate. We have thus rapidly glanced at the relative development of each of the cryptogamous types of vegetation, and will next consider that of the phanerogamous types. As already shown, the Gymnosperms stand lowest, and have probably, in some still undiscovered way, descended from the Cryptogams. Of these we place the Cycadaces lowest on ac. count of their endogenous growth, circinate estivation, and other char- acteristics which seem to ally them to the ferns. Still, as the lines are now drawn by the best authorities, the Cycadacez cannot be traced be- low the Carboniferous, while the archaic progenitors of the Conifers extend far down into the Silurian. If we refer the Medullose to the ferns, as Renault and Grand’ Eury would have us do, only three cyca- daceous plants occur in the Carboniferous; but one of these is a true WARD. ] DISCUSSION OF DIAGRAMS. 447 Pterophyllum from the coal measures of China, and there is probably a second from Europe. Fourteen species occur in the Permian, includ- ing the typical genera Dioonites and Olathraria. It is not, however, until the Keuper is reached that this type of vegetation assumes a leading part, and throughout the Jurassic it continues to be the most abundant form of plant life. In the Lias it forms 43 per cent of the flora of that formation, though this may be accidentally exaggerated. It was 28 per cent of the Oolitic flora and more than 35 per cent of that of the Wealden. From this point, however, its decline was rapid and uninterrupted until in the living. flora only 75 species of cycadace- ous plants are known to botanists. Of these North America can claim but a single one, the sago-palm (Zamia angustifolia) of our extreme Southeastern States. Passing to the Coniferz, we find the Cordaites Robbii of Dawson from the Devonian of Canada recurring in the Upper Silurian of Hé- rault. This genus was formerly supposed to be the prototype of the Cycadacee, but, as already remarked, this opinion is now abandoned by the best authorities, and the genus referred to the Conifere. The evi- dence upon which this change rests cannot be presented here, but it is proper to say that the savants who have marshaled it have done so in such a manner as to render their conclusion akin to irresistible. But its adoption has carried with it a train of consequences which cannot be escaped. Not Cordaites alone, or with its spore-bearing parts (Cordai- anthus) and its fruit (Cordaicarpus), but Neggerathia, Trigonocarpus, Cardiocarpus, Rhabdocarpus, Sternbergia, Artisia, etc., must all follow in its wake and be gathered, one and all, into the great family of the Conifere. it is thus, as shown by our table and diagram, that this type assumes such a commanding position far back in Paleozoic time, forming about one-fourth of the vegetation of the Permo-carboniferous epoch. Doubtless this effect is exaggerated by duplications caused by giving different names to separate parts of the same plant, but this occurs throughout the series only to a less obvious degree. The true Conifer, which have some representatives in the Paleozoic, replace the Cordaitew entirely in the lower Trias and thereafter vie with the Cycadacee for supremacy, which they do not fairly attain until the lower Cretaceous is reached. Being of a higher type of struct- ure than the latter by reason of their exogenous mode of growth and other peculiarities, they refuse to succamb in competition with the now rising Angiosperms and continue to hold their own through much of the Tertiary. At the present time the number of known species (300) would denote a great decline, but this is in large part made up by the wonderful predominance and territorial expansion of these persistent forms. Although from the point of view of the number of species alone, the present Conifer would form but one-fourth of 1 per. cent of the vegetation of the globe, we in fact find vast tracts of country covered with pine, fir, and spruce forests, excluding. almost completely 448 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. all other types. But that the pine family is now waning there can be no doubt. Important forms have wholly disappeared, and others that once were abundant have now nearly vanished from the earth. Of this last truth an example of unusual interest is furnished by the genus Sequoia. Of the score or more of species that made up so large a part of American Tertiary forests our well-known “ big tree” of the Sierras (S. gigantea) and our California red-wood (S. sempervirens) now stand alone and continue the combat against fate—the closing struggle of a dying race. Of the G@netacew J need not here speak, as its paleontological record is almost nil, and its importance depends upon circumstances wholly disconnected from its prevalence as a type of vegetation. We come now to the Angiosperms. A great step forward had been taken, and in her solicitude for her offspring Nature had, as it were, built a house over the hitherto unprotected germs of plant life. The closed ovary marks an era in the march of vegetal development. The earliest form in which the Angiosperms appeared was that of the Monocotyledon. Issuing from the seed and from the ground as a single spear or blade, the plants of this type grow up chiefly by an in- ternal circulation which can only deposit nutrition at the apex (endo. genous growth). As the lowest type of Angiosperms we find them, according to our scheme of classification, occupying also the earliest position in the stratified deposits of the earth’s crust. The existence of Monocotyledons in the Carboniferous and Permian was long disputed, although Corda, after the most exhaustive study of their structure, was obliged to refer two species of endogenous wood to that subclass. This determination has been thus far sustained, and to these have been added Palcospathe Sternbergii, Unger, in the Car- boniferous, and two other species in the Permian. The very problem- atical Spirangium has generally been regarded as the fruit of some Xyris-like Monocotyledon, and this view has been quite recently de- fended by Nathorst. Its occurrence in the Carboniferous is now also abundantly established by its discovery at Wettin, at Saint Etienne, and at Pittston, Pennsylvania. Certain lily-like forms, called Yuccites, are found in the lower Trias, and through the remaining Mesozoic these forms increase slowly and are reinforced by screw-pines and a few sedge-like plants. The monocotyledonous vegetation, however, does not receive any marked character until the advent of the great palm family, which dates from the Middle Cretaceous. From this time, notwithstanding the rivalry of the now dominant Dicotyledons, this type progressed, reaching its relative maximum in the Evcene. Overslaughed by the higher growths, it thenceforward declined, but still numbers some 20,000 species and forms over one-eighth of the total flora of the pres- ent epoch. The step from the Monocotyledon to the Dicotyledon is very great, and it seems to have required a vast period of time to accomplish it. WARD. ] DISCUSSION OF DIAGRAMS. 449 Not only must a new form of growth from the seed and from the ground be developed, and a sort of bilateral symmetry be introduced, but in ad- dition to this, and, as I believe, in great part due to it, the exogenous mode of circulation and tissue growth must supplant the endogenous one, whereby the stem may increase in thickness as well as in length. Thcse great mechanical problems were worked out during Mesozoic time and in the Middle Cretaceous, represented in this country by the Dakota group, and in Europe by the Cenomanian epoch, the great type of plant life appeared which was destined to domiuate the world and sink all other forms into insignificance. But the most astonishing fact is that this young giant was born, as it were, fall grown. In this lowest horizon at which any Dicotyledons appear?” we have already obtained more than three hundred species belonging to all three of the great divisions of the subclass, and exhibiting ample, luxuriant foliage. They embrace many of our most familiar forms, the poplar, the birch, the beech, the sycamore, and the oak. Here appears the fig tree, the true laurel, the sassafras, the persimmon, the maple, the walnut, the mag- nolia, and even the apple and the plam. We must conclude, then, that the Dicotyledonshad a muchearlier origin than is shown by our defective record, and that they had been long developing through the Mesozoic ages. If now we follow the advancing wave of plant life from this point up- ward we shall see that from the new vantage-ground furnished by the closed ovary, the perfect flower, and the exogenous trunk, its march was rapid and steady until we reach the Miocene Tertiary, the culmi- nating point in the paleontological series. Here the species actually found are numbered by thousands, and the higher types greatly pre- dominate over the lower ones. But from this point the record begins to fail, and can no longer be trusted. Very little is found in the Plio- cene, and still less in the Quaternary; but this cannot indicate an ac- tual decline in these types of vegetation. It must be due to the ap- proach of a state of things which rendered the preservation of vegetable remains difficult, a condition, as already remarked, which is especially characteristic of the present state of the globe. The march of the Di- cotyledons was uninterrupted, and still continues. The figures given in the numerical table represent, in round numbers, the cstimates of Messrs. Bentham and Hooker, as given in their “Genera Plantarum,” and may, therefore, be taken as the most reliable that can be obtained. The three divisions of the Dicotyledons combined amount to 87,000 spe- cies, and constitute nearly 60 per cent. of the flora of the globe. With regard to the three divisions of the Dicotyledons, although they are all represented in the lowest formation at which any considerable number are found, still the Apetale constitute a larger proportion of the Dicotyledons in the Cenomanian (45 per cent) than in the Miocene (37 urit we accept the solitary Populus primeva, Heer, from the Urgonian beds of Kome, Greenland. GEOL 84——29 450 ; SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. per cent), and very much larger in the Tertiary than in the living flora (14 per cent), while the Gamopetale, which constitute only 5 per cent in the Cretaceous, reach 15 per cent in the Miocene, and 46 per cent in the living flora, here exceeding the Polypetale. From these facts it is evident that the order of development is such as I have here given it, and that the type of the future is to be not the Polypetalz but the Gamopetale. These conclusions are independently corroborated by a large mass of evidence of other kinds, but space forbids me to adduce it in detail. I may simply say, however, that just as the closed ovary of the Angiosperm in general furnished a condition for the development of that class at the expense of the unprotected Gymnosperm, so the two floral envelopes of the Polypetale and Gamopetale enabled those divi- sions to outstrip the Apetale with its single floral envelope; and since this advantage is proportional to the degree of protection secured, the Gamopetale, with their tubular corollas are manifestly better adapted to survire in this respect than the Polypetale. This is the chief argu- ment, and, putting it with that from paleontology, it seems sufficiently conclusive without detailéd support. Discussion of Diagram No. II.—In this diagram the time equivalents are the same as in the last, but only the more important types are rep- resented. The Rhizocarpee, Ligulate, and Gnetacee are omitted, and the Dicotyledons as a whole are shown, disregarding their subdivision into Apetale, Polypetale,and Gamopetale. A figure is added represeut- ing the total of all the formations, and this is probably the most impor- tant of them all, as least affected by the gaps and fluctuations in the record. No account could, of course, be taken of the living flora, as is done in Diagram No.I, for while between the fossil and the living floras there is a similarity in the proportion that the types in each bear to the sums of such floras, no such analogy holds between the number of species actually known inany fossil flora and the number in the living flora. This, at least, is true of the total floras and of all the types except, perhaps, the Cycadace and the Couifere. But even here the comparison would fail to express the rapid decline which these forms have evidently un- dergone, at least so far as the number of their species, which represents their diversity, is concerned. While the diagram is of little service as a means of representing the true development of each type of vegetation or of the general flora of past ages, it has considerable value as an exponent of the true charac- ter of the phyto-geologic record. It shows more clearly and more strik- ingly than any words or figures could do the great differences that characterize the different periods of geologic time in their susceptibility to deposit, preserve, and afterwards expose to scientific investigation the vegetable forms that coustituted the floras of those periods. While this is well shown for the several dominant types it is especially obvi- ous in the figure illustrating the entire flora. Here are brought promi- nently into view, first, the age of island vegetation in the Carbon- U. § GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Cryptogams. Geological forma- | Vascular. tions. Cellular. | Ferns. Equisetinez. Lycopodinee. Quaternary. | X ry | Mio- 2 Pliocene. § | ¢. a | & O}E ~ © & | Eocene Cretaceous | 3 3 SJ : 3 + 3 a = Jura-Trias. Pei mo-Carbo- niferous Devonian. 3 S S S iPr ——- Ss. a A Silurian. Cambrian. DIAGR SHOWING THE OBSERVED ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ° FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LVIT Phanogams. Gymnosperms. Angiosperms. All vegetation. Cycadacex. | Conifer. | Monocotyledons. Dicotyledons. | | | M No. 2. 1E PRINCIPAL TYPES OF VEGETATION IN GEOLOGIC TIME. wanD.] DISCUSSION OF DIAGRAMS. 451 iferous ;. next, the second and still greater age of extensive marsh, vast low slaty cut by shallow estuaries or partially or wholly cut off from the sea and forming brackish or fresh water deposits, which culmi- nated in the Miocene; then, the two intermediate periods of only less favorable conditions occurring in the Brown Jura and the Cenomanian, respectively; and, finally, the long intermediate ages of less favor- able or wholly unfavorable conditions and the abrupt termination of the entire period of plant deposition which accompanied the age of mountain building towards the close of the Tertiary. The almost com- plete absence of vegetable remains in the Trias, the lower Cretaceous, and the Turonian of both continents points to the probable general sub- sidence of land areas at those epochs, at least for such portions of the earth’s surface as have been explored by paleontologists. But the great relative abundance of such life in the middle and again in the extreme upper Cretaceous shows that those must have been great land areas at all times—areas which are now either under the sea or belong to some of the still scientifically “‘ unexplored regions” of the globe. .The proof of this is made conclusive by the fact that new and higher types come forth abruptly in these floras which must have required ages of most favorable conditions for their prior devc lopment. Discussion of Diagram No. ITI.—This diagram is simply the application of the rational scientific method to the incomplete facts afforded by the present infantile state of the science of fossil plants. It does not pretend to give the exact history of plant development, but only to constitute a certain advance in this direction beyond what the fragmentary data out of which it is constructed can alone furnish. For example, it is certain that the earliest record discovered by man of the existence of any type of vegetation cannot mark the absolute origin of that type, and it is therefore necessary in every case to project the type down- ward to an unknown distance. If the real facts could be indicated we should see during these unrecorded periods the actual transformations which must also be assumed to have taken place in each case before the fully-developed type could appear. This we are unable to repre- sent, and must merely indicate the early history of each type by its downward projection to an assumed point of origin. Neither can it be supposed that the great fluctuations shown in the diagram last con- sidered are due altogether or chiefly to fluctuations in the degree of vigor, territorial expansion, or local prominence of the given form of vegetable life. They are the results of varying geological conditions or of human good fortune, while the modifications in the forms themselves take place slowly and at uniform rates either in the ascending or the descending scale. Recognizing this law of uniformity, no fluctuations in any homogeneous type have been admitted, but simply a more or less regular development in each from its assumed point of origin to its supposed period of maximum predominance, followed by an equally uni- form decline to the present epoch when its condition relative to past 452 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. epochs is also indicated. The only exception to this rule has been made in the case of the Cellular Cryptogams, whose heterogeneous character has doubtless caused it to undergo considerable fluctuation. One such is assumed in the Carboniferous, in which, though one of the great pe- tiods of vegetable deposition, the actual number of Cellular Cryptogams falls below that of either preceding or subsequent periods. This seems to argue that there was a reduced representation of this form of plant life in that age, and this is shown in the figure presented for that type. The three facts which this diagram aims chiefly to bring out, not shown in either of the preceding diagrams, are, first, the true origin, or geological age of first appearance of each type of vegetation; second, the period of its maximum development; and, third, the rank it occu- pies in the living flora relative to its maximum. These are all delicate points to fix in a manner that will satisfy all the conditions of the problem. The evidence from all sides has to be cautiously weighed, care taken not to give undue weight to any nor toundervalueany. These are not ques- tions that can be hastily settled. They require to be pondered long and well. Itis by no means claimed that substantial truth has been reached in every case. No two persons, however competent, would probably exactly agree upon all the points, and I am sure that at differ- ent times with increasing evidence I have modified my own conclusions. But this is far from confessing that the attempt is valueless, and it is certain that great value should be attached to the enlarged conceptions of vegetal development that flow from such a study. Descent of plants.—But we need not stop here. The great law of de- velopment does not allow us to contemplate these types as independent of oneanother. Each class of plants must be regarded as the descend- ants of some ancestral form more or less different from it. The multiple origin of existing forms, whether of plants or animals, is repugnant to modern scientific thought. Itis the discovery of facts that has rendered itso. The multiple and varied of the present must be regarded as due to divergences in the past. The forms we have have come down to us along divergent lines from common ancestral forms. These are the lines of descent, and plants have their lines of descent as well as animals or human families. Of this we are practically certain, but just what those lines are and where they diverged—these are the great problems of phytogeny. The lines of descent in the animal kingdom have been laid down by various eminent zodlogists with considerable confidence and unanimity. In plant life they have scarcely ever been attempted. The problem is loaded with extraordinary complications and cannot be satisfactorily attacked until we shall possess far more knowledge than we possess at present. FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PUL. LVIIT U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Cryptogams. Phenogams. Gymnosperms. Angiosperms. All vegetation na- | Vascular. Cellular. | | Ferns. Equisetinee. | Lycopodine. Cycadacew. | Coniferm. Mw Eyl Dicotyledons. Quaternary. A Cenozoic. Tertiary. Eocene. Cretaceous. Ss 3 Zz Za Jura-Trias. Devonian. x 5s = 2 a AY Silurian. Cambrian. Diagram No. 3. SHOWING THE ASSUMED ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF VEGETATION IN GEOLOGIC TIME. o INDEX. Page. Accompanying papers with report of Di- TOQUE otc ties sentaticedecwiebonsuescaues 67-452 Adams County, Wisconsin ................ 223, 235 Adiantum, Supposed fossil ................. 402 Administrative reports ..................2. 3-66 ; Becker, G.S ...-.. 47-49 ; Chamberlin,T. C.. 20-24 ; Clarke, F. W ..... 59-62 ; Dutton, Capt. C. Reecattnesewene 42-43 ; Emmons, 8. F..... 4347 ; Gannett, Henry.. 3-14 ; Gilbert, G. K ..... 30-34 ; Hague, Arnold ... 15-19 ; Hayden, Dr. F. V. 28-30 ; Irving, Prof. Rol- and D .....-....-. 24-28 ; Marsh, Prof. O.C. 49-50 3 McGee, W J...... 34-41 ; Shutt, George W 64-66 ; Walcott, Charles 52-55 3; Ward, Lester F... 55-59 ; White, Dr. C. A .. 50-51 ; Williams, Albert, JP secseivientaetslateawss 63-64 Advantages for artesian wells of low incli- nation of strata 146 Agams..............- 429 Agawmok, Lake ..... 207 AgasslZ, Prof. Av coce see cestncdnccaceeenee 54 L., an authority on glaciers... 309 ; botany.....------..- re 376 Agricola on petrified wood - -388, 391 BW OPN i eo iaiscicicemersapersie sonriceieerccecemsies 47 Airy, G. B., cited ...... 22... .0---2 eee ee eee 80 Alaska glaciers ~-- 348-355 Albertus Magnus the first to mention pet- rified wood.......----- on the virtus formativa. Aleutian Islands glaciers .............-.+-. Alexander ab Alexandro on the Flood as the cause of fossil remains ....-. ----..------ 391 Allan, Thomas, Contributions of, to paleo- DOAN noe ssc ease esis es seccieeeseeee 404 Alport, S...ssie. sececeeeeees -- 214 Amber Flora. ......--0.+--05. 415, 418 ¢ A BOOTING wcnnnennere - 418 ; Origin and nature of ... --- 403 , Vegetable inclusions in....-.--... 415, 418 Amber-tree .....--..-. Seeseeeeeeee eee 0-403, 418 / Page. POTN Bs wees ae suet deseih a cinaijoeeeakiiocuuiet 255 Amphibolites studied microscopically...... 201 Ancient glaciers of the Sierra Nevada...... 327 shores, Recognition of ...... 122 Ancients; causes of their ignorance. --- 888 j Passages supposed to indicate their atquaintance with fossil WORT, OUG.or.sursemceasuueunk ase 387 © , Knowledge and opinions of the, - relating to fossils.......... 386, 393, 398 wholly ignorant of vegetable pet- Tifactions -.... 387 Be OG OM icsinmsdveoniennacwnaiaclee’ - 416 Andrews, Dr. Edmund, on wave action..... 88 Angiosperms.........-.2..0..2e cee eeceeees 433 , Development of the.......... 448 Animikie rocks . ..182, 187, 192, 193, 196, 197, 203-205 * 206, 207, 215, 218, 224 225, 226, 227, 228 series; The 226 cccsoeeeese excuse 203-205 Annularia established by Sternberg........ 428 regarded by Lindley and Hut- ton as a dicotyledon........... 480 Romingeri ........... ..--...--- 445 sphenophylloides mistaken by Lehmann fora fossil Aster .. 396 Anthotypolithes Apetala....... Aplin, S.A .. Appalachian Division, The. -.............-. 48 Archean Formations of N. W. States; Prof. R. D. Irving. ..--......--.---.- 175-242 Rocks studied by Prof. R. D. TPVAN gs joscsie eur ceieacecicesuiclarte xxii Areas of adverse, doubtful, and favorable probabilities for artesian wells.......... 172-173 Archeus, or spirit of the universe......... 389 Aristotle's doctrine of generatio equivoca.386, 389 conceptions of time limits ...... 398 Arlington Praitie, Wisconsin; St. Peter’s sandstone -. ween = 228, 224 Arnold, Theodore, on the origin of fossils.. 890 Artesian wells, Art of sinking....-......-. 169 , Chicago, Ill.. , Conditions of ‘ ; confining stratum above... 139 ; below... 138 COstiofisccwecestesenesecnce 170 , Decline of flow in - 157-165 , Denver, Col........ ~-45, 151 , Essential features of...... - 134 454 INDEX: Page. Page. Artesian wells, Fond du Lac, Wis ...-..-.. 143 | Benton County, Minnesota.......-.--..0..- 200 , Increasing flow in ........ 154,155 | Berger, Reinhold, on the fruits and seeds of , Irrigation by -.-.---- 148 the Carboniferous formation 420, 421 , Limits to depthof ... 167 | Bernadou, John B., U.S.N .-..-....--.2---- 32 , Oshkosh, Wis .--.- 143 | Bernardo glacier, Alaska ..-.......----.--- 352 , Palmyra, Wis .--.....-..-- 143 | Bianconi, Giuseppe G., on the determina- ; prerequisites .....-.-. .--- 135 tion of leaves by their nervation. ----B80, 420 , Rate of delivery in........ 154 | Bibliography of North American geology... xxx ; superiority of oil region Bibliolithi, Bibliolithes..... .......---.426, 427, 428 methods......----------+- 169 | Bien, Morris 5 ; typical examples a 84) Big hRork Rivers. sei. ccccse cuir cee 206 ; use of the diamond drill... 169 | Big Stone Lake..........-.-.--2-.--..02-6-- 200 , Watertown, Wis ..-....--- 143 | ‘‘ Big tree" of the Sierras. we. 448 Artificial vs. Natural systems of classifica- Bilobites rugosa ....--....-- .-222--0-seeeeee 444 HOD se ced ageemte nee deve aceee aces wees 432 | Binney, Edward William....-.........------ 369 Artis, E. T,; ‘‘Antediluvian Phytology ”..405, 406 , Contributions of, to paleobotany ATUBIAi so demsheticansseeetaeheeeesmecaS -- 447 412, 415, 420, 421 Ashland County, Wisconsin ...... 218, 216, 232, 235 pOKOGCh Of s.cscxsicsicincutieeskearcasay. 374 Aspleninum .......2.-...22ee scene een e ee -- 428 | Biographical sketches of the leading paleo- Aster Amellus ...... 222.2. .ece ee eee een eee 396 DOCADISES ais, ooje,c-Seicic cise Sicieisicinieis wtnieisinrs montanus, Lehmann’s supposed Biology, Interrelations of Geology and POSSI iiss 5 dora ce crinenienteysreieie aout Binge, Wo Miecaaeiaircaracivinaants. oaisirarsiclsventceinteters Sibiricus . Bimmoy Li. W asesiasiye'vcen se aAasteiophyliites Black Bay, Lake Superior Atking Wi Dissecen screws ayeecieeeos: Augite schists studied microscopically ...-. 211 Auer and Worring's invention of physioty- SPY Sowiowrese Seiinwstdna s cewehma ne tewatuieeece 380 Aura seminalis........... 3 - 890 Avicenna proposed vis lapidifica . --589, 390 PATONG 23 eo useiciniislcesinsisie seem semecees 432, 438 SBAGURAY OF vaias wip icicroemisalviereisisialeieiciowenrat? 195, 228, 232 Ballenstedt, J.G. F., on vegetable fossils... 408 Bar, Phe scncccosessscaseus we tess sees 91, 92-95 MBhaped sectce scone utes views sce 98 Barrier, The Barron County, Wisconsin ........-....-.-- 197 Barus) Dus Carl scence issein de sac edacsienien XXVI, 62 Bassett, C. C Basswood Lake -.........-.-.+..---26- 205, 207, 208 Bauder, F. Fr., Rational views of, on the nature of foasils.....--.........--..02.--- 395 BaUBINS acest soe es dele aciassianasiese 388, 389, 390 Beach, Hon. Horace, on artesian wells ...-- 149, 151 IML B iaseru ta sietete st ajateta aintevcinepe) avalaroranacuaie sie cate 87 Beaumont, Elie de, on wave action ....... 76, 79, 89 sandstones .........- 220 Beche. (See Dela Beche.) Becker, GiiPocc ses 2s dearest tae asket Gate XXIV , Administrative report of ..... 47-49 Beds bearing water .....-.....-.-...2.-2--- 135 , Inclination of.....-..-. 141 confining water .........6.---..02.--+ 138 » Height of outcropping ..-....... wees 143 , Surface condition of the porous...... 147 Beechy, Sir F.W......-..-..022---- ceeeeee 354 Belcher, Sir E., cited on Alaska glaciers... 348 Bell, W. H., cited on Stikine River glaciers 352 , Canadian maps . Bendire, Capt. Chas .. . Bentham jJi-2 2455.65 sede cetent sedescies ete River Falls, Wisconsin, Potsdam se- 224 187 198 Blair, H. B 6 Blake, W. P., on Stikine River glaciers ... 349, 352 Blind River ......... ictus acceeecte 187, 189, 227 Bloody Cafion moraines ........-.------.+-. 328 Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, Rational views of, on the nature of fossils. . ..394, 395, 399 Boccone. Paul, Rational views of, on the na- ture of fossils... 2.02. seceeeet ce ace: 394 Bodfish, Sumner H ....-.. 0.222. -2-2-- XVII, 7, 8, 41 Bolam glacier .-......-....-- Hie cates isleawe ast 333, 334 Bonneville, Lake. (See Lake Bonneville.) Bonney; Ds) Gisxsawenccsceeecteane cesses 221, 240 Bore, One large or several small ones, for water supply ..--.---.-----------------ee- 155 Bos latifrons beneath ancient glacier. ...... 354 Botanical systems............-.202-..-2005 433-439 Botanilithes:: 2 cssecseeecisssweg vesersiec sae 427 Botany end phleobotany ; independent man- ner in which they have heretofore been studied.... 367 , Interdependence Of dreestee'siaes 366 Boteler We Me we:o2 38 estes we nie esses 5,14 Bowerbank’s ‘' Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay”’....--.....22--2-2-2.--- 413 Braddock's Bay, Lake Ontario, Map -..--.- 94 Brain Growth: - sc wseseeee pecs ey 288-294 of Dinocerata ............... 284-294 Brainerd, Minn., Geological formation at .. 197 Braun, Friedrich, Paleobotanical contribu- tons Of sseasactade soeeustiweesseo nee es 420 Brewer, Prof.W. H., on glacial dirt bands.. 319 ; @xperiments on sediments.-....... 62 Brewster, Patrick, Contributions of, to paleo- Bridger series . . BOON SMITE, Doc nsivnnviews ericcoasne INDEX. 455 Page. Page. Brongniart, A.; fossil plantsof Hér,Sweden. 404 Catlinite or pipestone ................0- -» 201 A. T.; classification of fossil Cellular cryptogams ............2..2.0e005 429, 432 plants .......... 407, 428, 429 of Brongniart ......... 429 ; Contributions of, to pa- ; probable fluctuations leobotany . .404, 405, 406, 408, in development..... 452 417, 421, 424, 428 | Cerutus, B ............. 393 ; division of the geologic series ........ waideeis 407 ; distribution of land veg- etation ............. 404, 407 ; mode of growth of coal plants ......0-....... 400 » Rank of, as a paleo- botanist ....368, 369, 406, 407 § DROOL ce cvnwcsnenay 372 Bronn, H.G.; Index Paleontologicus..... 420, 421 Brontotherium beds.......................- 254 Brooks, Maj. T.B ......... -190, 191, 193, 229 Brown County, Minnesota..... ........... 200, 202 Crown, Robert, on Triplosporites .......... 421 Bruce Mine Bay, Lake Huron, quartzite... 230 Briickmann, F. E., on the diluvian origin of fossil remains ...... 2.0... .cc ec eee eee ee ee 392 Brush, Prof. George J ..-......... wee BE Buch, L. von; mode of growth of coal plant. 400 ; nervation of leaves.......... 380 Buckland, W., Contributions of, to paleo- botany PGB OB vi § 5.505 ie cman qmiaconnwns Bunbury, Sir C.D. ccc ecccwseuwacovences , Contributions of, to paleobotany, 419, 420 p ROLE OF ccerec cu eunmuene downs 379 ‘Bittner, D.§., on the diluvian origin of fos- BU TOMAS. 6c cewaceeeees 392 Calamitas o. sijioscicedeveshiccephtiniecece sus 426 regarded by Walch and Suckow as extinet..........-0- 2 eee ee 398 Calamites.............. eiceieten nae 427, 428, 433, 445 California division, The. redwood... Call, R. E.......----. Cambrian formation....... Camerarius, Elias, on the origin of fossils... Campement d’ Ours Island gray wacke Canon, TwolMmneiccaa ax: cscwees ses ecsaeee Capeller, Maurus Antonius, on the tropical facies of fossil plants..........-.-.--..... 397 Capellint) Ge s<...ce:cjoccnicncouend coneceeasese 378 CardiocarpuS.....-...----------cecece enone 447 Carl, J. F., on artesian wells of oil region.. 169 , describes packing support in bored wells ........-..------. 159 , describes use of torpedo in oil TORION yon ncnniconnae eecmers bar 155 , Samuel, Rational views of, on the nature Of TOSSISs eeceetewsdecerece sees - 894 Carpenter, P. H.,an authority on glaciers.. 309 Carpolithes ....... 20-2022. -ececeeeceeeeens 427, 428 Carpolithi 426 Carruthers, William ..-. 369 ; paleobotanical 424 Chamberlin, T. C XXI ; administrative report......... 20-24 ; geology of Wisconsin cited.... 197 ; map of Wiseonsin ........... 181, 194 ithe requisite and qualifying conditions of artesian wells. 125 Champion mine, Michigan.................. 225 Chaney, G. O.........22..- asia 56 Chaplin, J ...... 2... eee ee Sees easesbeatoc 44 Chapman, R. H... 2-2... ele eeeeeee eee eee eee 6 Chase}. He Sicn5 5 c.tce. ors Lecoectvensccact 10 Chatard, Dr. Thomas M............ --XXVII, 60, 61 Chauvenet, W. M......... --- 25, 26, 28, 205, 208 Chemie work .-...........2.2ccceceeeseeeee XXVIT WAL OD sects Scrsis.scctotieaemea-ckweeabeiceine 166 Chemistry, Division of; administrative re- eivinininiaruintattinisi diatare'eta caeiee stahatie glen mies 59 --. 229 Chester, Prof. A. H., on Minnesota iron OF8 ate veds wececen estan acces 204, 205, 206, 208, 212 Chicago artesian stream, Section........... 133 Chioccns, Andreas, Rational views of, on the nature of fossils TODO: . ancaadewiennnnnveend Valley. casi che decemsctadeccecen Chlorite Schists studied microscopically... 211 Chondrités antiquated cscs udesonsuueas 44t Cialdi, Alessandro, cited as to waves..76, 80, 82, 88 Cincinnati group............-....0-.--..225 182 Clarke, Prof. F. W .-....-..-2-.ceceeeseanes XXVII ; administrative report.............. 59 Salem, on motion of Lyell glacier... 324 Classification of archwanrocks of the North- Westessiseccoss ccc cermar 209 fossil plants. . 403, 407, 422, 425-431 , Lindley & Hut- ton on the 409-409 the Cryptogams 437-439 Clathraviaicssesecsccdecrcs cececstvaeedeuaee 447 Clay slate from St. Louis River, Minnesota. 233 we near Mahtowah, Minn...... 233 studied microscopically .......... 210 Clearwater Lake graywacke.....-.--.-.... Cliff of differential degradation , The Sea..-...-.....- Peeve sions Seleladbiew lus: StTOAM ...... 22 eee eee eee ee eee Cliffs ...-....----.+-- , Comparison of... Club-mosses..-..--..----- 433 Coal, Opinions on the origin of........ 414, 415, 421 plants, Mode of growth of............ 400 Collecting area of artesian wells... - 145 Colman, E. T., ascended Mount Baker. 341 Colonoceras .-......2-0. cee cece ee nce ween 255 456 INDEX. Page. Colorado River modified by artesian wells... 150 Colt: Ti: Divneivstiscewinwnectionsecsensansentes 9,14 Columbia County, Wisconsin .198, 223, 224, 233, 235 River modified by artesian wells. 150 Columna, Fabius, Rational views of, on the nature of fossils......-.--..--+----2e2--++ 393 Compendium of Paleobotany, Preparation Of Bic eases cetee 363 Coniferas 433 , Development of the 447 Contents of Archwan Formations of North- western States, paper on, by R. D. Irving ...----+----+--++ 177 Conditions of artesian wells, a paperon, byT.C.Chamberlin. 127 Dinocerata, a paper on, by 0. C. Marsh senewiasiaicte erates 245 Glaciers of the United States, a paper on, by I. C. Russell..-. 305 Lake shores, 2 paper on, by G. K. Gilbert. .........-.-.--00e eee 71 Sketch of paleobotany, by Les- tery WArd ss ecmcicdsccicieersn 359 Confining stratum above for artesian wells. 139 below for artesian wells. 138 Contrasted ratios of supply and demand of WATER eos isas sincreneriod meee ane eetecelses 148 Cook, George H.; conference on map...... 39 Cope, E. D.; Wyoming fossils 251 Copper Rivet ..-...----------+------ - IT Corda, Angustidoseph, .....-2.5-.-6 augense 369 , Contributions of, topaleobotany 412, 417,418 , Sketch of .......---.0---eeeeeeceneee 374 Cordaianthus quiinarceabasesceen beecseaemes 447 Cordaites ..-------+---e+0+- 447° Cordaites ...---------.++-+20- 447 Robbii ............- ~- 447 Cornwall, A. B....--.------ 2-2-2 eee ee eee 62 Cornwall, England, echiste 2... .0...1.0.46+ 240 Corpuscula salina of Kircher - 390 Corrasion, Acceleration of . 117 Coryphodon......-.--.--+-+ .-251, 252 BOOS :-csiesesiciiasss delsieemscinecsens 252 Cotta, C. Bernhard von, Contributions of, to PRleo Olan secsneete=s cen c cae peeewacees Cottonwood County, Minnesota. . Coulée edge, The......-.......+ Cowlitz River runs from a glacier.......... 335 GINGER inc kicctreeicaiencinevinice rennet 336 Cranial nerves, The. . 285 Credneria -. sortie saGistieemecs ane sss 411 Cretaceous.......-..-.- .. 200, 201, 221 Crevasses in glaciers........-----.+----+--- 318 Crichton, Sir Alexander; on the climate of the antediluvian world. ..-.......-....--- 406 Crosnier, L ........-- 220 Cross, Whitman ... --XXIV, 44, 46, 216 Cry plogaminuionnunane MaeleseeAacehalansen 432, 438 , Cellular .........--..---- 429, 438, 444 , Classification of the . , Vascular - Cucumites ........ isis Cummins, R. T . Cup Butte, Lake Bonneville ...... masons Currents, Off-shore .......-.---.2---- eee eee Cuvier 405 Cycadaccze - 433 446, 447 Da Costa, Emanuel Mendes, on the diluvian origin of fossil remains. ...~-.....+.------ 392 Dall, W. H., on glaciers of Alaska...-----. 358-355 Dana Creek ...-.------- cece ee ree cere eer eee 316 Glacier......-----.--- +062 --- eee cece ee 322 Prof. James D., cited on terraces . ...112, 236 Mount -< s25cccseescs scenes 314, 315, 316, 317 Prof. Edward S...--..------------ XXII, 34 Dane County, Wisconsin, sandstone ....... 235 Daniells, Prof. W. W .---.-------- 27, 28, 194 Daphnites 426 | Darwin, C 432 Dar wins. CxO vemwirvscceacweiecdaicinciatears wiieidere XXX Daubrée, A 220 D’Aunbuisson de Voisins on vegetable fossils. 403 Davidson County, Minnesota .......-..---- 200 , Prof. G.; Mount Rainier glacier .334, 335 found Aleutian glacier. 353 Davila, P. F., on the indigenous theory of fossil plants clam nwvelpcaye Sh ute ais re meee trates cjetehe Da Vinci, Leonardo, Rational views of, re- lating to the nature of fossils Davis: Ai Ps cvewescuncuieneenewencuecsecnetae ,C.D..-. Dawes, H. L...-.--- Dawson, Dr.G.M .. Dawson, Sir John William ....... ---...--. , Contributions of, to paleobotany. 416, 424 5 SketeMoly. wis: wsetccs asa aioe 317 Debey, M. H., on the fossil plants of Aachen 421 De Candolle, A. P.; geographical distribu- tion of plauts......- 366 ; nervation of leaves... 381 Decline of flow in artesian wells .......... 157-165 Defrance, Jacques Louis Marin, Ccntribu- tions of, to paleobotany.._........-------- 405 Degeneration theory of plants.-...-......-. 397 De la Beche; Sir Henry Thomas, Contriba- tions of, to paleobotany ..-...-.---+ ----- 405 Delta, The.....-. 2.0... eee cec ee nnn eee nes 87, 90, 1¢4 POSS sarscicrecinramaciewtetommmelemenas 107 ideal section. - weoee 107 vertical section. .............-.- 107 Deluc. (See Luc.) Deluge. (See Flood; Noachian Deluge.) hypothesis ....-.......--..2.-..-- Dendrolithus --..... Descent of plants Denver, Colo., artesian snails: Eanee Desor, E., cited as to wave action .....-..... Development in vegetation ......-...-...5-. Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin....... - 223, 224 Devonian, Flora of the......... 445 Diabase defined..........---... 215 porphyrite defined. .......-.......- 215 Diagrams illustrating the development of plant life ............. «see. -361, 442 INDEX. Page. Diagrams, Discussion of............. Diamond drill for artesian-wells. Peak glacier.... ................. Diastrophism as related to topographic re- TICES sccmateousles ananawes nels 76 MeN: sence tess soiwetcw einen 118 Dicksonia, supposed fossil.................. 402 Dicotyledons....... 22. ..2.. 2202 ce eeeece ee 429, 433 , Arrangement of the divisions BEL Geos este ema mad 431, 450 : Development of the........-. 448, 449 Diller, JS... 2.2... ccc + -- XXIII, 42, 236, 341 Dinoceras beds. ........2000 scenes ener eceees 252 Tacustre ...scecceeceeee ee cenene es 251 laticeps .. ees 251 mirabile............ segs. A201 ; lower jaw .......... =. 273-277 § SID nwa: ‘ence den erwiwad wagiowe 256 ; frontal bones .......... 260-262 ; lachtymal bones . 266 ; molar bones.... 265 ; Toaxillaries .. 266 ; nasal bones............. 258 j occiput ...-.. 2.22.2... 263-265 ; palate ....... 267-269 ; palatine bone .. 269 3 parietal bones - 260-262 } premaxillaries.......... 266 ; prenasal bones.........- 259 3 pterygoid bones . 270-272 3 Squamosal bones. . : vomers : {COON cease eatin smi octet ; canines . ; incisors ; lower molars. -. upper molars .. DinOCerataieisisicisio ec ci peter seal eessciaecie ss first found ..........--.....22-- , The fore limbs of... Dioonites .......-..-.0--02-0005-- Diorite defined...............0.-.-.-2-00000e Diplacodon beds .......-....--..-.2.+------ 252 Director, Report of the. XVI-XXXVI Dirt-bands in glaciers .- 319 Discrimination of shore features, The 112 Discussion of diagrams of the development OF WANE DTG ca comcnn ream snaaivenien 443-452 Distribution of wave-wrought shore feat- BUCS ecactarecesiccesoces 101-103 wells, Advantageous ...... 156 . District of Columbia, Work in ..-.......--.- 8 the Great Basin .....-....-.-...- XIX PCC cence waieieureeices XIX Diversity of rock texture causes irregularity in erosion.....--....2-0-2---- 2-22 e eee ee vi) Division, General organization of the geo- graphic ...-.........226 seeeeeee 3 of Chemistry, Administrative re- Port. coseereewee a 59 Geography, The .. ..--.-.-.-- 3-14 Mining Statistics and Technol- 457 Page. Division of Paleontology, Administrative re- POE sonicechutreuinuinemunaices 49-50 _ Quaternary Geology, Adminis- trative report ...... 0.000.022. 20-24 the Pacific, Administrative re- port aicwiaw eSda tenis mnicuiieieceee 47-49 » The Appalachian................. 4-8 California ............. 2-2... 13, 14 «, MEGUTAHA Gees teeccwnwns xmeras 9 New England ...........-.... 3-4 Wyoming...........-........ 10 Dodge County, Wisconsin ................5 199 Dossetter, E., photographed Alaska glaciers 352 DOO TAS: LSM oie. c a cwesaan cddishakenives wicca 11,12 Drifting sand; dunes ....... -- 99, 100 Drift Shore wesccacsulsccabowecneus -- 86, 87 Drill, Diamond, for artesian wells......--.-. 169 Drilling, Interpretation of.............-..-- 172 Record of 170 Driven wells ......-..... 170 Dromocyou ......-2.20..0.ceeeeeceneeenece 255 Dulac, Alleon, on the exotic character of the ferns of Saint Etienne................-. Duck Point, Grand Traverse Bay DUNES 5d As een aseeoohemiecsincee 7 Dunker, Wilhelm, Contributions of, to pale- ODOCAN Ys oer Sans ost ten Gatien 419 Dunnington, A.F ....-....-...-002---0006- 5 Dutton, Capt. C.E..-.. XXIII ; administrative report.. 42,43 Duval Si Riscecessccsseseswexeneeeusaceko ee 4,14 Eagle Harbor, Michigan, Sandstone at . - ..237-240 Baking SiGe vic cee cciecciewie dey eGiceinbeccee Earth augers. shaping... East Neebish Island - Eau Pleine River............ 22... eee ee eee Echo River quartzite....... 0.0.2.2 ee eeeee Eccles, James; cited on Wind River glaciers 345 Eimbeck, W.; as to Jeff Davis glacier... 342, 343 FURRIVOR swess saccceacemtcaiesee ce aoa Ellis, William Embankments Emergence, Submergence and, of shores... 110 Emmons, 8. F.... . ibistasUalwinaietateted XVII, XXIV, 9 ; administrative report .........--. 48-47 quotes Gen. Kautz on glaciers..... 335 on glaciers, Mount Rainier. ........ 335 Empedocles on the origin of vegetable life. 393 Empire Biuff, Lake Michigan ...........-.. 93, 103 Endogenites ...-..---------2.ccecer eee eee 408, 428 Engelhardt, H., Paleobotanical work of .... 424 Engler on the geographical distribution of PATA juieiescisiwinse bil ie ican eiGinrnialate nimmiototclenmreicie 366 Enlargement of feldspar fragments in cer- tain Keweenawan sand- stones .......----------- 237-245 mineral fragments in cer- tain detrital rocks. ...... 218 Eobasileus .........-..... 251 Eopteris Morierii 445 ‘Eozoon Canadense 444 Ephedra antisyphilitica.........-...002-065 433 458 INDEX. Page. Page Equalization of supply in wells.....-....... 149 | Flowers, Fossil............-2..2--22008 396, 404, 426 Equisetace® ...-.....-2.0.-020 sees eeeeee = 445 | Folded Schists north and east of Lake Su- HQuisetinG) panne caccxccen soetacoxemedse 4°3 OIE cow awacncaae ec eensaewe eee 205 , Development of the... 445 | Fontaine, W.M.; work in the fossil floras of HQ uis@ba my 2ccsigcccrcieienceeemptinaclecuicniowcine’s 438 VAP Bia octictyn trans aravaten te tansicionn aiaaivis atcles 424 giganteum 398 | Forbes, Prof. J. L., an authority on glaciers .309, 319 Equivalency of Penokee and Marquette Fore limbs of Dinocerata, The ..........-. 298-300 TOGKS? co sivincicescedtecmscen cine, Seheoeeus 2 195 | Fossil fauna of Eocene lake region, Wyo- Eratosthenes on the significance of fossil Ming -...-.--.- 2.2. .eee ee 250 BINOLLS* cai yseistersibie iverctersiatanarayite aicholslowicie’ Abiein 386 Western Americaolderthan Erni, Dr. Hentt.