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line upon which the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Wilming- 
ton, Baltimore, Washington, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Peters- 
burg and Weldon—or from the Hudson to the Roanoke—are sit- 
uated to-day. Leaving out of account the abundant herbaceous 
vegetation which carpeted the ground and filled the swamps and 
marshes, the general picture arises in the mind of a great Sequoian 
forest, furnishing the silicified wood, in the midst of which, corres- 
ponding to the shrubby undergrowth of modern forests, were 
everywhere to be seen these short cycadean forms from six inches 
to two feet in diameter and rising from a few inches to several — 
feet above ground, crowned at their summits by tufts of large 
palm-like or fern-like leaves, of striking aspect and great beauty. 
: There is quite a remarkable parallelism between the history of 
the discovery of these cycadean forms in Maryland with that 
which has recently been so graphically characterized by Senator 
Capellini in a monograph published jointly by him and Count 
Solms-Laubach on the Cycadean Trunks of the Italian Museums.* 
The historical part of this memoir, written by Senator Capellini, 
has all the interest of a romance, and he enters into a minute de- 
Scription of the mode of occurrence, the original discovery, and 
the final disposition of the large number of objects of this class 
which have been found in Italy and have made their way to the 
Several museums of that country. The literature itself dates back 
to 1745, while many of the specimens have been known for a 
much longer period. And some of these, though recently dis- 
Covered, were found, like those of Maryland, in places where they 
had been placed at a very early date. One of them was found in 
a wall of great antiquity in the city of Verona, and another was 
taken from the top of a tomb in the ancient Etruscan Necropolis 
of Marzabotto, where it had been placed by the remote ancestors 
of the modern Italian race, either as an ornament, or in commem- 
Oration of some symbolic rite. Thus does the, history of science 
repeat itself, and the new chapter, which has just been opened, is 
not the least interesting one of that history. 
*I tronchi di Bennettitee dei musei Italiani. Notizie storiche, geologiche, 
botaniche, dei Professori Senatore G. Capellini e Conte E. Solms-Laubach. Mem, 
Real. Accad, Sci. Ist. Bologna (V.), 161-215, f/. 1-5. 
