PROCKEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 329 



tion from their discoveries, in which they all agree, and which each 

 succeeding fact tends to confirm — every specimen brought to light 

 to illustrate ; that a law, corresponding with that which character- 

 izes the animal remains entombed in the earth, marking successive 

 and distinct races adapted to the climate and condition of the earth 

 at different geological epochs, prevails throughout the vegetable 

 relics dispersed through the various strata of which its crust is com- 

 posed. Not indeed that there is established a progressive develop- 

 ment of organised forms in the vegetable kingdom, from simple to 

 complex structure, from acotyledonous to monocotyledonous and dy- 

 cotyledonous plants, from the humble Lichen to the lords of the 

 forest — " a gradual perfection of organization going on from the 

 remotest period to the latest geological epoch," as M. Brongniart 

 and others have contended — but simply this, that certain tribes of 

 vegetables are found to characterize certain strata, either exclusive- 

 ly or in greater abundance than other strata, indicating the preval- 

 ence of those races on the spot at the period of the forrnation of the 

 rock in which they are embedded. Moreover, and this is the result, 

 singular though it be, which might have been anticipated from the 

 discoveries of Cuvier in fossil Zoology, that the types of the existing 

 vegetation are to be found only in the higher or more recent strata, 

 and that in proportion as we recede from the newer to the older 

 formations, the fossil vegetables assume less and less the form of ex- 

 isting species. But although numberless species, genera, and even 

 whole tribes of plants, which have long since ceased to exist in any 

 part of the world, are found in succession as \vp penetrate the earth, 

 it must not be inferred from hence that monstrous and anomalous 

 forms present themselves, with which the botanist is unable to grap. 

 pie, exhibiting a departure from the laws manifest in the existing 

 creation, disturbing the harmony and upsetting the order found to 

 prevail in every department of Nature's works. Every specimen, 

 however eccentric its species, however misshapen and uncouth its 

 form, may be referred to some of the recognised families of the ve- 

 getable kingdom, although now, perhaps, for the first time exhum- 

 ed from the depths of the earth, and ten thousand ages have elapsed 

 since it saw the light of day which gave it life and luxuriance. 

 As the traveller who circumnavigates the earth or explores lands 

 hitherto untrodden by human feet, finds everywhere the same order 

 of things, though under a different aspect ; so the geologist, how- 

 ever deeply he may penetrate into the earth, discovers only new 

 proofs of the uniformity of the laws pervading Nature. He turns 

 over, in fact, only another leaf of the volume of the Great Author. 

 Now, the specimens of fruit on the table, which have been disin- 

 terred from a sandstone quarry in Lancashire (near Bolton), are 

 evidently very dissimilar to any production of the soil and climate of 

 the district whence they were obtained, at the present day : but the 

 most uninitiated will at first sight discover in them some resem- 

 blance to the fruits which he has seen imported from the West In- 

 dies or Soiith America : and the first inference which he would na- 



