THE JUSSIEUS AND THE NATURAL METHOD. 249 



stones called addcrsi' eyes and. toad-stones, (Ibid., 1723;) and the fifth: Ohscr- 

 vations on some bones of a head, of the hippopotamus, (Ibid,., 1724.) 



Of these memoirs the most important is the first; it is, so to speak, the 

 author's memoir of discovert/. And yet how far was the learned world at that 

 date from any just conception respecting those phenomena of remote ages 

 which every day become more imposing iu proportion as they are better imder- 

 stood. If we listened to Antoine de Jussieu, the question would seem to relate 

 only to certain national antiquities, which give to one people a title to glorify 

 themselves above others on account of their possession. " There is no nation," 

 he says, "which does not pride itself on the monuments of whatever nature which 

 seem to indicate the antiquity of the country ; when the still existing remains 

 of human labor are not available for this purpose, recourse will be had to any 

 other peculiarity which points to a remote origin. Even botany, since its 

 recent and striking progress has attracted more general attention, has been laid 

 under contribution as aliment for the sentiment in question. Thus MM. Lloyd 

 and Woodward have arrogated honor to England from the discovery of stones 

 on which have been observed the impression of different plants. M. Mill claims 

 the same distinction for Saxony, and M. Leibnitz has enumerated all the places 

 in Germany which may pretend to the possession of these ancient vestiges of 

 nature. M. Scheuchzer, lastly, extols Switzerland for an unequalled affluence 

 in these impressions of vegetable forms, whose types, he alleges, existed before 

 the deluge." We see in this statement with how much fairness Antoine recog- 

 nizes the title of other nations ; but, proceeding to assert for France an equality 

 of advantages in this respect, he says : " Of this 1 had an opportunity of sat- 

 isfying myself when, passing through the province of the Lyonnais on my way to 

 Spain, I traversed the environs of Saint Chaumont." The honor of France 

 being thus assured, he enters upon the subject and recounts that up to the gate 

 of Saint Chaumont and along the little river of Gies he had the pleasure oi 

 observing on most of the stones which he picked up, the impressions of an 

 infinitude of fragments of plants, so different from all those which grow in the 

 Lyonnais, the neighboring provinces, and even in the rest of France, " that it 

 seemed to him as if he were botanizing in a neN\^ world." 



This explorer of a neic ivorld, and relatively much more neic than he supposed 

 it, first remarks that iu these stones the impressions of plants are found only 

 on the surfoce of the laminations. He next remarks, that on each flake or lamina 

 they are different and placed in different directions, and the number of these 

 flakes, the facility of separating them, the great variety of plants distinguishable, 

 causes him, as he ingeniously says, " to regard these stones as so many volumes 

 of botany which, in each quarry, compose the most ancient library of the world, 

 and all the more curious inasmuch as these plants either '-ixist no longer, or, if 

 they still exist, only in countries so remote that we should have no knowledge 

 of them without the discovery of these impressions." I have itahcized the words 

 exist no longer, as being in effect not a little remarkable, and as presenting, though 

 under a rather hesitating expression, a first indication of the grand idea of the 

 Buifons and Cuviers on lost species. 



Among the thousands of strange plants which have left their traces on our 

 rocks, the practiced eye of Antoine quickly rec ignizes capillarias, ceterachs, 

 polypodiums, adiantums, osmundas, filiculas, and species of ferns which resem- 

 ble, he says, "those that R. P. Plumier and M. Sloane have discovered in the 

 islands of America, and those which have been sent from the East and West 

 Indies." He recognizes also leaves of palms and other foreign trees, peculiar 

 stems, seeds, &c. But how does it happen that all these strange plants, these 

 plants of India and America, occur in this country, in France, iu the Lyonnais, 

 at Saint Chaumont ? Antoine is not willing to have recourse to the deluge ; he 

 is content with simpler means : " Without being obliged," says he, " to recur either 

 to the inundation of the universal deluge, or to those eai'thquakes and violent 



