70 Traxsactioxs of the American Institute. 



strange fantastic forms, and the singular creatures that lived beneath 

 their shade, we shall find ourselves in a new world different from 

 that which we inhabit, and differently peopled. Could we marshal 

 in one view four or five planets, each clothed with the peculiar flora, 

 and inhabited by the peculiar fauna of a distinct geologic period, we 

 should truly have before us many distinct worlds with nothing to 

 connect them with each other save only certain similarities of plan 

 and conception. But when we view these several worlds as successive, 

 and destined the one to prepare the way for the other, we can perceive 

 relations of the most remarkable and unexpected character, and have 

 presented to us a long protracted scheme of creation too vast to be 

 contained on the surface of our planet at any one period, and repre- 

 senting with our present flora all the possibilities of vegetable 

 existence, and all the uses, present and past, which plants can serve. 

 I have selected as the subject of this lecture one small department of 

 the vast field of fossil plants, a department of peculiar interest as 

 relating to the oldest known plants, and which, as a special and 

 favorite study of my own I must endeavor to make attractive to you. 

 But I must not rest contented with this, but in justice to the subject 

 must try also to present it in an orderly and systematic manner. I 

 must endeavor to give you something like a connected sketch of that 

 primeval flora which is the subject of this lecture ; and in order to 

 do this, I must first say a few , words on the relations of these early 

 forests to existing plants ; 2d, I shall say something of their relations 

 to geologic time ; 3d, I shall enter upon the subject proper by 

 describing to you some of the more remarkable plants that flourished 

 in that primeval age ; and -ith, I shall conclude with noticing some 

 of the uses of this primeval flora to us ; and I shall endeavor to give 

 you, if possible, some idea of the light which geology gives us as to the 

 first appearance of plants on our planet, and how far back they can be 

 traced in geologic time. First, then, I shall speak for the benefit of 

 those who may not have pursued the study of botany, of the relations 

 of existing plants, and the relation of the fossil flora to them. Taking 

 the whole of the plants known to us, we shall find upon examination 

 that they may all be divided into two great series ; first, that series of 

 plants in which we observe distinct flowers, and fruit containing seeds 

 proper, seeds with tlie embryo of future plants. These are the highest 

 plants, and constitute the Phajnogamous plants of the botanist. Then 

 we have a great group of plants of a lower and humbler organiza- 

 tion, which are destitute of true flowers, and which instead of pro- 



