76 



HARDWiCKE'S SCI E N CE- GOSSIP. 



carpet will be daily nibbled unless closed up, hearth- 

 rugs will suffer if any worsted ends are loose, and 

 should the gudeman's llshing-foots be found, into 

 how many pieces the thongs are nipped ia very 

 perversity I cannot say. " Bunny " sits as she did 

 in life upon a piece of carpet under a glass shade, 

 preserved by the hands of Mr. J. Shaw, of Shrews- 

 bury, a memento of what can be accomplished by 

 kindness and attention to the habits of dumb 

 creation. Emma Johnson. 



ANCIENT PLANT-LIFE. 

 By James Nield, 



THE following interesting paper on "Fossil 

 Botany " was recently read before the Old- 

 ' ham Microscopical Society : — 



Fig. 47. Sigillari^ (restored) ; b, leaf; c, d, portion of trunk with bark of two 

 species ; e, transverse section of stem ; /, scalariform vessels from ring 

 surrounding pith ; g, dotted vessels from outer part o( woody rings. 



Fossil botany, or palaeophytology, is the name of 

 that department of geologic study that deals with 

 those vegetable organisms the remains of which are 

 found in a fossil state embedded in some part of the 

 earth's crust. This is the broad meaning. The 

 term, perhaps, is more properly applied, and ought 

 to be restricted, to those remains of plant-life the 

 peculiar forms of which are now quite extinct. I 

 thus narrow down the subject of our consideration 

 to avoid redundancy. Let us take a cursory survey 

 of the nature and sequence of plant-life on the globe, 

 taking them in ascending order, and glancing 

 hurriedly and briefly at the positions held by theoi 

 in the systematic arrangement of recent botanists. 



The Silurian period may properly be called the 

 day of thallogenic life, a division which comprises 

 the simplest forms of vegetable organisms, of which 

 we may take marine alga? as repre- 

 sentatives. These members of the 

 vegetable kingdom are made up ex- 

 clusively of cellular tissue, and increase 

 in size by the simplest method of cell- 

 growth and reproduction. Just as 

 these cellulares are at the present day 

 heaped upon our shores, so analogous 

 forms covered the littoral boundaries 

 of the old Silurian seas. I infer this 

 from the many accumulations of im- 

 pure coal, or anthracite, to be met 

 with in this and other countries, and 

 belonging to the Silurian formation. 

 The individual plants composing these 

 beds are, however, but very indif- 

 ferently preserved, owing, partly, to 

 their great age, the changes they must 

 have endured in subsequent periods, 

 and, perhaps, still more to the fact 

 that their loose, cellular bodies pos- 

 sessed no strong framework of veins 

 and veinlets to support them ; their 

 outlines are ill-defined, and therefore 

 many of their most important charac- 

 ters and specific differences are little 

 known. The Devonian, or old red 

 sandstone age, seems to have been the 

 first stepping-stone to the gorgeous 

 flora of the Carboniferous period which 

 succeeds it. Immediately we leave 

 the upper beds of the Silurian, and 

 step upon the lower beds of the " Old 

 Red," we are met with plants claim- 

 ing higher rank, more complex in 

 structure, and more specialized iu 

 parts, than any encountered in the 

 previous age. To the thallogens are 

 here added forms which are believed 

 to be acrogens, and named after living 

 plants because of a supposed external 

 resemblance to them — equisetums. 



