Mr WithanTs Observations on Fossil Vegetables. 183 



Art. XXII. — Observations on Fossil Vegetables, accompa- 

 nied by Representations of their Internal Structure as seen 

 through the Microscope. By Henry Witham, Esq. of 

 Lartington, Fellow of the Geological Society of London ; 

 of the Royal and Wernerian Societies of Edinburgh, &c. 



The following extracts which we make are from a splendid 

 work which bears the above title, by Mr Witham. The im- 

 portance of the volume is not little, as we are furnished by it 

 with the ready means of examining the character and internal 

 structure of plants of different geological epochs, in a mode 

 hitherto little known to the class of naturalists to whose use 

 this volume is chiefly designed. 



" My investigations," observes Mr Witham, " have led me 

 to believe, that plants of the Phanerogamic class are much more 

 abundant in our coal-fields and mountain limestone groups, than 

 has generally been supposed. The great opacity and peculiar 

 mineralogical arrangements of these fossil plants, have present- 

 ed obstacles to the examination of their intimate structure, 

 which have induced naturalists to rest contented with the dis- 

 tinctive characters afforded by their external forms ; and in 

 many instances, these forms are obviously too much altered, 

 to permit us to refer the objects in question, with perfect satis- 

 faction, to any natural family. But a method has lately been 

 discovered, by which the stems or branches may be sliced, and 

 afterwards reduced to such a degree of thinness as to permit 

 us to inspect the most minute remains of organic texture. The 

 unexpected result thus obtained, has enabled me to examine 

 numerous varieties of structure in fossil plants ; and I feel con- 

 fident, that I should be rendering a service to science, by pre- 

 senting to the public representations of some of these varieties, 

 accompanied by others of those recent plants to which they 

 seem decidedly to approximate. 



" According to the opinion of those who have most BUCCess- 

 fully cultivated geological botany, the essential character of 

 the first vegetation of the globe consisted in the great develop- 

 ment and numerical preponderance of the vascular cryptoga- 

 mic plants: and the great size of the P'erns, Lyeopodiacese, 

 and Equisetaceae, imbedded in our deposits, authorize us to 

 presume, that, during that period, circumstances calculated to 



