64 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



Observations on Fucoides and on Some Other Fossit 

 Marine Plants. — By Ad. Brongniart. Read January 

 31, 1823.* 



Fucoides. 



It i.s only within a short time that naturahsts have com- 

 menced to give attention to fos.sil plants of the family Algae 

 that are met with in different terranes ; of the few, I do not 

 know one old work in which they are mentioned in an exact 

 manner. It seems, how^ever, that these fossils, very common 

 in many parts of Italy, as will be shown later on in this 

 memoir, have attracted the attention of some Italian botan- 

 ists, and particularly the celebrated Micheli and Jean Targioni. 



Brocchi is saidf to have found among the manuscripts of 

 the latter, a very excellent work on the Fuci that he found 

 in some calcareous rocks named in Tuscany, Galestro or 

 Oucrceto, about seven miles from Florence ; but this work, 

 accompanied by 44 plates, unfortunately remains in manu- 

 script, and is, in consequence, unknown to nearly all 

 naturalists. It appears, however, from what Brocchi has 

 said, that the Fuci brought together by him include some 

 species described by us in this memoir ; we imagine, however, 

 from the number of plates accompanying the work, that 

 Targioni had many more species than we have knowledge of. 



Turner, in his superb work on the Fuci, vol. 2, p. 75, in the 

 article on Ficais lii^ulatus, says that Dr. Scott had told him of 

 the discovery of impressions of this species of Fucus in the 

 basalt of the Chaussee-des-Geauts ; but the information is too 

 vague for one to place great confidence in the observation, 

 because there have not been discovered, up to the present, 

 any organized fossil bodies, and especially vegetable, in the 

 basalt. 



Finally, last year, M. Schlotheim, in a supplement to his 

 work on petrefactions,+ has made known, under the name of 

 Al^acites, some fossils that approach the AlgcC or marine 

 plants, and of which he had not spoken in his previous work. 

 At the same time the supplement appeared in (icrmany, I 



'■'Mem. dela Soc. Hist. Nat. dc P.iri.s. vol. i. iSz^i, pp. joi-,^2t. pi. },. 



tBibliotheca Italiniia, vol. x, p. 206. 



tNachtrfig-e ziir petreractenkunde. voti H I-". Baron von Schlotheiin, C.othii, 1S22. 



