26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Equisetacoa:', but sufjgests tliat Uiey may represent an extinct 

 family intermediate between E(]uisetacea; and Casuarineaj ! 



On tlu^ wbole Cotta's book is not to be taken too seriously from 

 a scientific point of view. He was only a beginner at tbe time, 

 and evidently no great botanist. His observations, liowever, were 

 good, and sometimes bis natural instinct led liim rigbt wben more 

 learned autborities went wrong. 



To us, in tliis country, tbe most interesting figure among the 

 group we are considering, is that of Henry Wit bam. His real 

 name was Henry iSilveitop; be was born in 1779, and took the 

 name of AVitliam on liis marriage. He was a man of considerable 

 |)roperty and importance in the North of England, and was the 

 first Eoman Catholic High !SberifF of tlie County of Hurbam. His 

 work on fossil plants belongs to a short period of his life, when 

 be was about 50. ]le\vas the founder of modern structural fossil 

 Botany in so far as he was the first man who used thin sections 

 mounted on glass — the discovery of this method was due toNicol, 

 to whom he fully acknowledges his indebtedness, as he does also 

 to JMacgillivray, \\ho made the drawings and also no doubt helped 

 w ith his botanical knowledge. 



In an early paper " On the Vegetation of the First Period of 

 an Ancient World," read before the AVernerian Society of Edin- 

 burgh on Dec. 5, 1829, Witham shows himself still much under 

 tbe influence of Brongniart. He regards the "Craigleith Tree," 

 first discovered in 1826, and now known as PHus WitJuimi (L. & 

 H.), and other Gymnospermous Phanerogams of Carboniferous 

 age as trifling exceptions to the general distribution of early 

 vegetation. He says : " AVe find the opinion of Mr. A. Brong- 

 niart most comjjletely verified, namely that the Vascular Crypto- 

 gamic plants had a vast numerical proportion, and in fact of 

 260 species discovered in this Terrain or period, 220 belong to 

 this Class." Witham very soon modified this opinion, as we shall 

 see. It appears that a section of tbe Craigleith fossil — a manifest 

 Gymnosperm, one would think — had been sent to Brongniart, 

 who replied: "I cannot now give a final but only a conditional 

 opinion. It is that I believe it to be a section of a Monocotyle- 

 donous plant." This strange conclusion, which seems to have 

 been shared by some local botam'sts, though not, of course, by 

 AVitham himself, can only be explained by the state of preserva- 

 tion combined perhaps with a certain prejudice, at that time, in 

 favour of the greater antiquity of Monocotyledons. 



In a letter to Winch, a JVewcastle naturalist, dated Dec. 23, 

 1829, accompanying this pamphlet and preserved in Winch's 

 correspondence in our own Library, AVitham goes into tbe inter- 

 esting question of the ])resence of annual rings in tbe early 

 Gymnosperms. He says : " I have as yet been unable to discover 

 any concentric rings in the Wideopen fossil [Pinites, now Corduites, 



BraHdling'i] I sent Mr. Hutton a beautiful slice of the 



AV'ideopen tree, which to look at with the naked eye would have 

 inclined one to believe they were there, but upon microscopic 



