The President's Address. By Dukinfield H. Scott. 131 



which he did not want, were remorselessly thrown into the gutter." 

 (Roche, 1905, p. 17.) 



One day, when Eenault was accompanied by his friend 

 Grand'Eury, another illustrious palreobotanist, who happily is still 

 with us in full vigour, a curious incident occurred. Grand'Eury, as 

 they approached a good locality, asked his friend, " What do you 

 want me to find ? " "A Sigillaria with its bark on," replied 

 Eenault. In a minute or two Grand'Eury picked up a block, 

 and without examining it said, " There's the Sigillaria you asked 

 for." Chance had favoured him. Renault cleaned the specimen 

 according to custom ; it revealed itself as a magnificent Sigillaria 

 spinulosa, which formed the subject of one of his best known 

 memoirs, written in collaboration with Grand'Eury. (Renault, 

 1874.) It was ten years before another piece was found, and no 

 more has been met with since then. Those who have worked at 

 such subjects may be able to recall coincidences almost as sur- 

 prising. 



It was from the permocarboniferous deposits,both at Autun and 

 at Grand Croix near St. Etienne, that Renault drew most of the 

 material for his detailed studies. But he was able to add to the 

 resources of palseobotanical science by the discovery of a fossil- 

 iferous bed at a much lower horizon. At Esnost, twelve kilometres 

 from Autun, there had been some prospecting for coal as long 

 ago as 1812. Renault examined the debris from the abandoned 

 pits, and was able to show that they contained fossils of Lower 

 Carboniferous age, of the stage unfortunately called Culm on the 

 Continent, though the original Culm of Devonshire, from which 

 the name is taken, is now known to have been of much later 

 date, as Mr. Arber has shown. In the Lower Carboniferous of 

 Esnost, Renault made important discoveries of petrified plants, 

 including specimens of Archceocalamites, the most ancient type of 

 Equisetales, Lepidodendron and its cones, with other Lycopodia- 

 ceous remains, the fern-like Diploldbis with its fructifications, and 

 other fructifications of the groups, now so problematic, allied to 

 Ferns. 



Renault had scarcely started on his palseobotanical career, 

 when he was called away on duty of a very different and sterner 

 character. One of his earliest and most important discoveries, 

 that of the anatomical structure of the remarkable genus Spheno- 

 phyllum, was communicated to the French Academy on May 30, 

 1870. As no one of my generation is likely to forget, war was 

 declared by France against Prussia on July 15 of that year. 

 During the succeeding siege of Paris, the illustrations to the Sphen- 

 ophyllum memoir were lost, and its publication long delayed (till 

 1873). Renault himself, however, had no leisure for scientific 

 regrets. "When the terrible year arrived," says M. Roche, 

 " Renault, esteemed by all, and well known for his honourable 



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