l5() Mr Nicol on the Structure of 



Slieppy, in the county of Kent. In the Royal Museum of the 

 University, there are two specimens from that locality which are 

 unequivocal Coniferae, and apparently both of one species. 



The above conclusion I have long ago made known to many 

 scientific gentlemen in this country, and also to several on the 

 Continent ; and although a statement of it was read to this So- 

 ciety, and printed in the 27th number of Professor Jameson''s 

 Philosophical Journal, yet, ever since the publication of Mr 

 Witham's first work,* an opinion has generally prevailed that 

 the conclusion was the result of Mr Witham's investigation. 

 This opinion did not arise from any direct statement to that 

 effect, but from the author of the work not expressing in direct 

 terms that the conclusion had been pointed out to him by me. 

 I attach no merit to myself for the discoveiy I made, since any 

 one might have made it with even the half the labour I bestowed, 

 but justice requires the correction of an error already too far and 

 widely spread. 



The method of investigating the structure of Coniferae by the 

 characters displayed in the longitudinal sections, has been much 

 vaunted in the second edition of the " Observations on Fossil 

 Vegetables^ as a new and important discovery. This method I 

 had often employed, but I must say that it was Professor 

 Lindley who first published the advantages resulting from it. 



There is another circumstance which I certainly should not 

 have thought it worth while to notice, had it not found its way 

 into several scientific works in this country and abroad, which is 

 the prevalence of an opinion that my method of preparing thin 

 slices of fossil wood for microscopic observations, is also the con- 

 trivance of Mr Witham. This opinion has chiefly arisen from 

 the repeated assertions of the joint Editor of a work on Fossil 

 Plants, in spite of what is stated by Mr Witham himself, who 

 says in the first edition of the " Observations on Fossil Vege- 

 tables,"" viz. that he is indebted to me for the process. 



Not only my method of preparing thin shces, but that of ex- 

 amining the organic structure of fossil woods, by reducing them 

 to thin translucent slices, has been ascribed by some unwise 

 friends to Mr Witham, although that gentleman has no more 



^'Observations on Fossil Vegetables by H. Witham, Esq. F. R. S. &c. 1831. 



