446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



iarized with its employment in favor of or against many classes of 

 wrong-doers, that the practicability and propriety of its application to 

 offenders generally were first perceived. 



SAPORTA'S WOELD OF PLANTS BEFORE THE 

 APPEARANCE OF MAN * 



Translated fkom the Feench by Miss E. A. YOUMANS. 



MEN of science, whose patient researches have accumulated the 

 proofs of the theory of evolution, have perhaps found more 

 facts in support of this great philosophical doctrine in the vegetable 

 than in the animal world. When we say the vegetable world, we of 

 course mean chiefly fossil vegetables. It is only by the study of ex- 

 tinct forms, and their comparison with the living flora, that the af- 

 finities between actual types and distant ancestors have been discov- 

 ered, and their mode of evolution revealed. Vegetable paleontology, 

 it is true, is yet in its infancy, and has many great gaps ; still, the ra- 

 pidity with which it is being developed, and the prodigious number of 

 facts that have been already collected, give good ground for the hope 

 that the day is not far distant when we shall have surely determined 

 the ancestral lines of most of our plants. To this the efforts of pale- 

 ontologists are tending, and their activity is beyond all praise. Dur- 

 ing the last twenty years their discoveries have furnished the matter 

 for large volumes and for many memoirs, published in the reports of 

 academies of science, in the bulletins of geological societies, etc. But 

 the profound lessons derived from these discoveries have hitherto been 

 almost the exclusive possession of scientific men. People of general 

 intelligence, who are interested in all progress have known little of the 

 results obtained. This injustice could be no longer tolerated. A com- 

 plete treatise was required, written in a style that all could compre- 

 hend, and summing up the progress thus far accomplished ; and M. de 

 Saporta, one of the most eminent authorities in vegetable paleontology, 

 has just published such a work. 



He devotes his first chapter to the theory of evolution, passing suc- 

 cessively in review the most important arguments in its favor. Not- 

 withstanding the great interest of this subject, it will not detain us 

 now, for we wish to examine the main body of the work. Besides, 

 Saporta is now writing for the " International Scientific Series " a 

 book devoted to the study of evolution in the vegetable kingdom, 

 where he will show the line of descent of the great families of plants. 



* The World of Plants before the Appearance of Man. By Count de Saporta, Corre- 

 spondent of the Institute. 8vo. 416 pages, with Thirteen Plates, of which five are col- 

 ored, and One Hundred and Eighteen Figures in the Text. Paris: G. Masson. 1879. 



