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On the Vegetation of the Carboniferoua Period, as compared 

 with that of the present day. By Dr HoOKER, Botanist to 

 tlie Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. 



There are few persons who have devoted any time to the study 

 of fossil 'plants, especially those of the coal- formation, and have not 

 been particularly interrogated on the value of their results, compared 

 with those derivable from the investigation of animal remains. What 

 that value may be, is daily asked of the naturalist, while in the field, 

 by the uninitiated yet cuiious looker-on, who eageily offers his aid as 

 a collector, in exchange for information upon the materials he gives or 

 offers to procure. It is no less frequently proposed by the young 

 geologist, who, though skilled in seizing the characters presented by 

 a comparatively indestructible shell or bone, is at a loss to appreciate 

 those afforded by the always compressed and more or less nmtilated 

 fragments of what were originally perishable plants. 



It is with a view of instructing such inquirers that the following 

 introductory observations are thrown together. Relating exclusively 

 to the more obvious features of that formation which conspicuously 

 abounds in fossil vegetables, to their most prominent characters, and 

 to the botanical value of those features only, they can have no claim 

 upon the attention of the experienced palaeontologist. They are 

 little more than the first impressions received by a naturalist, who, 

 having been almost exclusively occupied with an existing Flora, is 

 called upon to contrast with it the fragmentary remains of another 

 Flora, whose species are, without an exception, different from those 

 now livino-, which represent in part the vegetation of a period inde- 

 finitely antecedent to the present, and have been succeeded by still 

 other plants, equally diverse from both, and which have likewise 

 perished. 



From the very outset it must be borne in mind, that, whatever 

 lio-ht future investigations of hitherto-unexplored coal-fields may 

 throw upon this most difficult subject, we can never hope thereby to 

 arrive at any great amount of precision in determining the species 

 of veofetable remains, nor to ascertain the degree of value due to the 

 presence or absence of certain forms, such as the animal kingdom 

 so conspicuously affords. Still less can we expect that they will 

 prove equally appreciable indices of the climate and other physical 

 features of tliat portion of the surface of the globe upon which they 

 once flourished. 



The great extent of the vegetable kingdom is hardly to be appre- 

 ciated except by the pi-ofessed botanist; and he must be an ad- 

 vanced student who knows as much of its main features as he may 

 acquire of the animal creation during the course of an ordinary edu- 

 cation. Every one, for example, is familiar with the divisions of the 



