A YORKSHIRE NATURALIST 195 



house, and I showed him this specimen. He was 

 much struck with its interest and novelty, and asked 

 me to allow him to publish a figure of it in the fifth 

 edition of his " Manual of Elementary Geology/' 

 upon the preparation of which he was then engaged. 

 Of course I consented, and the figure appeared in 

 1855 on page 368 of that work, whilst on page 372 

 of the same volume its author illustrated my recent 

 discovery of the true structure of the Sternbergia, 

 already referred to, by copying some of my 

 figures. 



At this time I had no intention of entering upon 

 the long series of studies of the carboniferous plants 

 in which I subsequently became engaged. My friend 

 Mr. Binney was then investigating these plants, and 

 I had no desire to interfere with his researches, 

 but unfortunately he was not a botanist, and so fell 

 into serious mistakes. 



Soon after the publication of Lyell's volume just 

 spoken of, I received a letter from M. Grand' Eury, 

 of St. Etienne, in France, who, I afterwards learnt, 

 was a rising colliery engineer in that part of the 

 world. 



In his letter he asked me some questions about 

 the specimen of Calamite figured by Lyell, adding 

 further remarks, obviously intended to elicit an 

 expression of my views respecting the organisation 

 of Calamites in general. To be honest, I must 

 confess that I had then entirely forgotten the little I 

 -ever knew about that subject. To refresh my 



