A YORKSHIRE NATURALIST 197 



Nothing being known of the specimens which 

 these earlier authors described, beyond the external 

 forms of isolated fragments, conclusions of ^ny 

 value respecting their relation to living plants were 

 out of the question. At length, however, the time and 

 the man arrived, when the attempt was made. 



A son of Alexander Brongniart, the eminent 

 French geologist, turned his attention not only to 

 recent botany, but to the fossil forms of plant 

 life. At a very early age he succeeded in bringing 

 together a large collection of fossil plants, which he 

 studied with the utmost care, and in 1828 he issued 

 a " Prodrome d'une Histoire des Ve"getaux Fossiles," 

 in which he announced a forthcoming work on a large 

 scale, to be entitled, " Histoire des Vegetaux Fossiles, 

 "ou Recherches Botaniques et Geologiques sur les 

 " Vegetaux Renfermes dans les Diverses Couches 

 "du Globe." 



This work was intended to constitute two quarto 

 volumes, to appear in from twenty to thirty parts, 

 with from 1 80 to 200 plates. It was to be devoted 

 partly to a description of the genera and species of 

 fossil plants, and partly to a study of their relations 

 to living plants. 



Though the " Prodrome " inevitably abounded in 

 errors, it gave us for the first time a philosophic 

 arrangement of the classes, families, and genera of 

 fossil plants then known, in four successive periods 

 of the earth's past history. It would have been 

 better had he adhered to this classification, because 



