262 Natural History in London. 



" Mr. R. C. Taylor, one of our Fellows, has prepared a valuable list of 

 the fossils hitherto discovered in the British strata [published in a former 

 Number of this Magazine, p. 26.], drawn principally from the works and 

 authority of Mr. Sowerby, to whose indefatigable exertions, in extending 

 our acquaintance with the fossils of England, geology is under most essential 

 obligation. 



" The Council has mentioned to you the late addition to the Museum, 

 of a splendid series of casts of foss,il remains, presented by the Baron Cuvier, 

 and doubly valuable from their connection with his own publications. These, 

 in fact, are but continued proofs of the interest which that illustrious natu- 

 ralist has always taken in the progress of this Society ; and few of us have 

 ever visited the French capital, without partaking, in person, of his hospi- 

 tality, and deriving advantage from his aid in our enquiries. When the 

 state of knowledge which many of us can remember, is contrasted with 

 what we know at present respecting fossil organised remains, — now that 

 we have acquired the power of determining from a single bone, or even a 

 fragment, almost the entire structure and relations of animals, whose races 

 are no longer in existence ; and when we recollect that we owe to the 

 same person the most complete history of fossil remains that has ever yet 

 appeared, in richness of matter, in arrangement, and in style j and that all 

 this is but a part of what one man has already performed ; we cannot be 

 surprised at the eminence which he occupies in public opinion. The name 

 of Cuvier is in fact identified with our subject ; for, unquestionabl}^ to no 

 one now living is geology so much indebted as to him ; and he enjoys the 

 enviable good fortune, not only of receiving from every side the tribute of 

 admiration and gratitude arising from his works, but of witnessing himself 

 the influence which they have shed, and are every day producing, on all 

 the kindred departments of science, and in almost every quarter of the 

 globe. 



" On the subject of fossil plants, we have heard, during the last session, 

 a valuable paper ; and there are, at present, before the Society, several new 

 specimens, which it is intended to figure and describe without delay. The 

 number of such specimens, in detached private collections throughout this 

 country, we know to be so great, that when the wish of the Council to 

 assist in describing and publishing them is generally known, we shall proba- 

 bly never want such a supply, as will enable us to connect with every future 

 part of our Transactions some contribution to fossil botany. Great benefit 

 will thus be produced, by circulating information at present locked up and 

 unavailing ; and the specimens lent to the Society for illustration will be 

 rendered doubly valuable to the proprietors themselves. 



" The botanical paper, in the last part of our Transactions, is that of 

 'Dr. Buckland on the C/ycadeoideae ; a new family of fossil plants, discovered 

 in the Isle of Portland, and obtained most probably from a stratum imme- 

 diately above the oolitic beds, which contains also lignite with the silicified 

 trunks of dicotyledonous trees. 



" On the suggestion of Mr. Brown, these fossils have been considered as 

 i)elonging to a family very nearly related to, but perhaps sufficiently distinct 

 from, the recent Cycadeae : and the observations of this distinguished bo- 

 tanist, with respect to the stem or caudex of this family, are illustrated by 

 sections represented in the plates which accompany Dr. Buckland's paper. 



" The family of Cycadeae consists at present of two genera, Zamia and 

 Cycas. In certain Zamiae, Mr. Brown states, there is one narrow vascular 

 circle, divisible into radiating plates, and situated in the midst of the cellu- 

 lar substance of which the stem is in a great part composed. In C'jcas re- 

 voluta, a second circle is added externally, at a small distance from the first ; 

 and in Cycas circinalis (according to the only section of this plant yet pub- 

 lished) the circles are more numerous, — the outermost being still consider- 

 ably removed from the circumference. 



