18461878] MISCELLANEOUS 239 



is much stronger and truer than " public." As Lycll wrote Letter 573 

 various other books and memoirs, I have some little doubt 

 about the Principles of Geology. People here do not like 

 your " enduring value " : it sounds almost an anticlimax. 

 They do not much like my " last (or endure) as long as 

 science lasts." If one reads a sentence often enough, it 

 always becomes odious. 

 God help you. 



To Oswald Heer. 1 Letter 574 



Down, March 8th [1875]. 



I thank you for your very kind and deeply interesting 

 letter of March ist, received yesterday, and for the present of 

 your work, which no doubt I shall soon receive from Dr. 

 Hooker. 2 The sudden appearance of so many Dicotyledons 

 in the Upper Chalk 3 appears to me a most perplexing phe- 

 nomenon to all who believe in any form of evolution, especially 

 to those who believe in extremely gradual evolution, to which 

 view I know that you are strongly opposed. The presence of 

 even one true Angiosperm in the Lower Chalk 4 makes me 



1 Oswald Heer (1809-83) was born at Niederutzwyl, in the Canton 

 of St. Gall, Switzerland, and for many years (1855-82) occupied the chair 

 of Botany in the University of Zurich. While eminent as an entomologist 

 Heer is chiefly known as a writer on Fossil Plants. He began to write on 

 palaeobotanical subjects in 1841 ; among his most important publications, 

 apart from the numerous papers contributed to scientific societies, the 

 following may be mentioned : Flora Tertiaria Helvetia, 1855-59 ; the 

 Flora Fossilis Arctica, 7 vols., 1869-83 ; Die Urwelt der Schiveiz, 1865 ; 

 Flora Fossilis Helvetic?, 1876-7. He was awarded the Wollaston medal 

 of the Geological Society in 1874, and in 1878 he received a Royal medal. 

 (Oswald Heer, Bibliographie et Tables Iconographiques, par G. Malloizel, 

 precede ifune Notice Biographique par R. Zeiller; Stockholm.) 



Flora Fossilis Arctica, Vol. III., 1874, sent by Prof. Heer through 

 Sir Joseph Hooker. 



The volume referred to contains a paper on the Cretaceous Flora of 

 the Arctic Zone (Spitzbergen and Greenland), in which several dicotyle- 

 donous plants are described. In a letter written by Heer to Darwin the 

 author speaks of a species of poplar which he describes as the oldest 

 Dicotyledon so far recorded. 



1 No satisfactory evidence has so far been brought forward of the 

 occurrence of fossil Angiosperms in pre-Cretaceous rocks. The origin of 

 the Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons remains one of the most difficult 

 and attractive problems of Palasobotany. 



