437 



This consideration necessarily leads us to doubt, if any reliance 

 can be placed on the accounts which have been given, by different 

 authors, respecting the existence of fossil flowers. Indeed, the ear- 

 lier writers on this science too frequently admitted resemblances, 

 when the connection between the supposed model and archetype 

 were too equivocal to authorize them. Thus Mylius imagined that 

 he traced the flower of the mouse-ear on a flint, and the rose of 

 Jericho on a schist from Manebach ; both of which M. Walch be- 

 lieves were, in reality, merely impressions of trochites. Not having 

 myself seen any fossil which can with certainty be said to have had 

 such an origin ; nor having seen any representation, or description, 

 which would fully authorize the admission of their existence ; and 

 not conceiving that the supposed fossil flowers of plants, of the 

 verticillated order, would be capable of being distinguished in that 

 state, I have not ventured to introduce the delineation of a fossil 

 flower ( Antholithus ) ; nor does it seem necessary to dwell longer 

 on the consideration of substances, whose existence is merely con- 

 jectural. 



Our inquwfcs respecting the remains of the seeds and seed-vessels 

 of different vegetables, Spermolithi, Linn, of former ages, may be 

 hoped to be rather more successful ; since these do sometimes pos- 

 sess such a degree of solidity, as when they are placed in situations 

 which prohibit their vegetation, will allow of their duration, until 

 their bituminous change is effected. 



This necessary degree of hardness will chiefly be found in those 

 fruits or seeds, the external parts of which have a tough ligamentous 

 covering, like that of the chesnut ; a hard scaly covering as in the 

 cone of the pine-tree, where the pericarp,, formed from an amentum, 

 consists of hard scales laying over each other ; a tough farinaceous 

 substance which becomes dry and hard, as in the coffee-berry ; an 

 osseous or bony covering, as in the hazel-nut ; or a still harder in- 

 vestiture, as the stone of pulpy, or fleshy fruits (drupce). 



