INTRODUCTORY 3. 



ists, and its really vital interest is enclosed in a petrify- 

 ing medium of technicalities. It is to give their results 

 in a more accessible form that the present volume has 

 been written. 



The actual plants that lived and died long ago have 

 left either no trace of their form and character, or but 

 imperfect fragments of some of their parts embedded in 

 hard rock and often hidden deep in the earth. That 

 such difficulties lie in our way should not discourage us 

 from attempting to learn all the fossils can teach. Many 

 an old manuscript which is torn and partly destroyed 

 bears a record, the fragments of which are more interest- 

 ing and important than a tale told by a complete new 

 book. The very difficulty of the subject of fossil botany 

 is in itself an incentive to study, and the obstacles to be 

 surmounted before a view of the ancient plants can be: 

 seen increase the fascination of the journey. 



The world of to-day has been nearly explored; but 

 the world, or rather the innumerable world-phases of the 

 past, lie before us practically unknown, bewilderingly 

 enticing in their mystery. These untrodden regions are 

 revealed to us only by the fossils lying scattered through 

 the rocks at our feet, which give us the clues to guide us- 

 along an adventurous path. 



Fables of flying dragons and wondrous sea monsters 

 have been shown by the students of animal fossils to be 

 no more marvellous than were the actual creatures which 

 once inhabited the globe; and among the plants such 

 wonderful monsters have their parallels in the floras ot 

 the past. The trees which are living to-day are very 

 recent in comparison with the ancestors of the families- 

 of lowlier plants, and most of the modern forest trees have 

 usurped a position which once belonged to the monster 

 members of such families as the Lycopods and Equise- 

 tums, which are now humble and dwindling. An ancient 

 giant of the past is seen in the frontispiece, and the great 

 girth of its stem offers a striking contrast to the feeble 

 trailing branches of its living relatives, the Club-mosses 



