THE OREGON NATURALIST. 



31 



opened the way "for, the "modern science^ of 

 Paleontology. 



Blumenbach confined himself chiefly to^ the 

 study of animals, but he was closely followed 

 by Schlotheim, who began his scientific career 

 in I So I l)y ]3ublishing his "Treatise on Vege- 

 table Impressions in the Tile Clay and Sand- 

 stone of the Carboniferous Deposits. " {^^Ab- 

 kanalung uber die Krauter - Abdrueke in 

 Schiefethon und Sandstein der Steinkohlen 

 Formation,''''^ This was soon followed by 

 his "Description of Remarkable Plant Impress- 

 ions and Petrifications of Plant, a Contribu- 

 tion to the Flora of the Primeval World," 

 (Flora der Yorwelt.) 



These works were copiously illustrated by 

 well drawn figures of carboniferous plants, giv- 

 ing us the most rational and comprehensive 

 account of fossil plants published up to that 

 date, and constituting the first really scientific 

 work on Paleobotany. 



Schlotheim defended the expression "Flora of 

 the primeval J world" (^Flora der Vortoelt.') 

 declaring his belief that fossils "were the re- 

 mnins of sn earlier, so called preadamite cre- 

 ation, the originals of which are now no longer 

 to be found." Almost all later German works 

 on^Palebotany have borrowed this title and 

 appear^ as *' Beitrage zur Flora der Vortvelt,"' 



A period of great activity in Paleobotany be- 

 gan with the 'century. England, although 

 slower to throw off the shackles of current 

 fallacies, [began to do her share of the labor of 

 research, and in 1804 there appeared a great 

 work on "Organic Remains of a Former 

 World," by Dr. James Parkinson. Dr. 

 Parkinson was a very learned man, and was 

 assisted by the distinguished botanist Dr. 

 Tames Edward Smith of the Linnaean Society. 

 Together they studied and compared all the 

 specimens obtainable, and their work was a 

 compendium ofthe knowledge of their time, yet 

 they were unwilling to adopt the modern 

 modes of thought but "conjectured" that fossil 

 plants "were all foreign, and productions of a 

 warm climate " 



The first work to bear strictly modern ap- 

 pearance was Schlotheim's "Petrefactenkunde" 

 which appeared in 1820. By far the larger 

 portion of this work was devoted to animal 

 remains, but the plants mentioned were ar- 

 ranged in families, genera and species accord- 

 ing to the binomial system of classification of 

 Linnaeus. 



It is frequently said that in this same year 

 Steinhauer, laid the foundation of Paleobotany 

 in America. This is scarcely to be taken 

 literally, for although the Rev. Henry Stein- 

 hauer resided at that time in Bethelehem, Pa., 

 and his paper, "On Fossil Reliquia of Un- 

 known Vegetables in the Coal Strata" ap- 

 peared in the "Transactions ofthe Am, [Phil- 

 osophical bociety," he confined himself almost 

 exclusively to the discussion of the fossils of 

 the British Isles, where he appears to have 

 spent most of his life. 



The work which marked the beginning of 

 the study of American deposits was Ebenezer 

 Granger's "Notice of Vegetable Impressions 

 on the rocks connected with the coal formation 

 of Zanesville, Ohio." (Am. Jour. of 

 Science, 1 821,) 



Corda, the eminent Bohemian Paleobotanist 

 was sent to Texas in 1847 to collect scientific 

 material. He remained there two years, but 

 the vessel on which he was returning went 

 down in the middle of the Atlantic and the 

 scientist[was lost with his collections and the 

 results of his studies. 



Sir J. W. Dawson, who was born in Pictou, 

 Nova Scotia, in 1820, has given us the larger 

 part of the information we possess regarding the 

 vegetable remains of Canada and the British 

 Northwest. His veiy volumenous works are 

 accurate and painstaking. Their value is uni- 

 versally recognized, and well deserved honors 

 have been heaped upon him. 



Heer, the Swiss Botanist and Entomologist, 

 united with his many other scientifiic pursuits 

 the study of the fossil floras of many lands and 

 wrote a work on the "Fossil Plants of the 

 Lower Cretaceous Beds of Kansas and Ne- 



