Sept. 20, 1883] 



NATURE 



509 



affording another example of the introduction into the outer 

 bark of the appaieil de soulien. As might have been anticipated 

 from this addition to the bark, this plant attained arborescent 

 dimensions, very large fragments of sandstone casts of the 

 exterior surface of the bark ' being very abundant in most 

 of the leading English coal-fields. Corda also figured it- from 

 Radnitz, confounding it, however, with his Lepidodendroid 

 Sagenaria fusiformis, with which it has no true affinity. Of 

 the smaller plants of which we know the structure but not the 

 systematic position, I may mention the beautiful little Kaloxylom? 

 We have also obtained a remarkable series of small spherical 

 bodies, to which I have given the provisional generic name of 

 Sporocarpon . 4 Their external wall is multicellular ; hence they 

 cannot be spores. Becoming tided with free cells, which dis- 

 play various stages of development as they advance to maturity, 

 we may infer that they are reproductive structures. Dr. Dawson 

 informs me that he has recently obtained some similar bodies, 

 also containing cells, from the Devonian beds of North and 

 South America. Except in calling attention to some slight 

 resemblance existing between my objects and the sporangiocarps 

 of PilitlariaS 1 have formed no opinion respecting their nature. 

 Dr. Dawson has pointed out that his specimen, also suggest rela- 

 tions with the Rhizocarpae. 



I am unwilling to close this address without making a brief 

 reference to the bearing of our suhject up in the question of 

 evolution. Various attempts have been made to construct a 

 genealogical tree of the vegetable kingdom. That the Crypto- 

 gams and Gymnosperms mule their appearance, and continued 

 to nourish on this earth, long prior to the appearance of the 

 monocotyledunous and dicotyledonous flowering plants, is at all 

 events a conclusion justified by our present knowledge so far as 

 it goes. Every one of the supposed Palms, Aroids, and other 

 Monocotyledons has now been ejected from the lists of Carbon- 

 iferous plants, and the Devonian rocks are equally devoid of 

 them. The generic relations of the Carboniferous vegetation to 

 the higher flowering plants found in the newer strata have no 

 light thrown upon them by these Palxozoic forms. The,e latter 

 do afford us a few plausible hints respecting some of their 

 Cryptogamic and Gymnospermous descendants, and we know 

 that the immediate ancestors of many of them flourished during 

 the Devonian age, but here our knowledge practically ceases. 

 Of their still older genealogies scarcely any reords remain. When 

 the registries disappeared, not only had the grandest forms of 

 Cryptogamic life that ever lived attained their highest develop- 

 ment, but even the yet more lordly Gymnosperms had become a 

 widely diffused and flourishing race. If there is any truth in the 

 doctrine of evolution, and especially if long periods of time were 

 necessary for a world-wide development of lower into higher 

 races, a terrestrial vegetation must have existed during a vast 

 succession of epochs ere the noble Lycopods began their 1 ro- 

 longed career. Long prior to the Carboniferous age they had 

 not only made this beginning, but during that age they had 

 diffused themselves over the entire earth. We find them equally 

 in the Old World and in the New. We discover them from amid 

 the ice-clad rocks of Bear Island and Spitzbergen to Brazil and 

 New South Wales. Unless we are prepared to concede that 

 they were simultaneously developed at these remote centres, we 

 must recognise the incalculable amount of time requisite to spread 

 them thus from their birthplace, wherever that may have been, 

 to the ends of the earth. Whatever may have been the case with 

 the southern hemisphere, we have also clear evidence that in the 

 northern one much of this « ide distribution must have been 

 accomplished prior to the Devonian age. What has become of 

 this pre-Devonian flora? Some contend that the lower cellular 

 forms of plant life were not preserved because their delicate 

 tissues were incapable of preservation. But why should this be 

 the case ? Such plants are abundantly preserved in Tertiary 

 strata, why not equally in Palaeozoic ones? The explanation 

 must surely be sought, not in their incapability of being preserved, 

 but in the operation of other causes. But the Carboniferous 

 rocks throw another impediment in the way of constructors of 

 these genealogical trees. Whilst Carboniferous plants are found 

 at hundreds of separate localities, widely distributed over the 

 globe, the number of spots at which these plants are found dis- 

 playing any internal structure is extremely few. It would be 

 difficult to enumerate a score of such spots. Yet each of those 

 favoured localities has revealed to us forms of plant life of which 

 the ordinary plant-beariug shales and sandstones of the same 



" Memoir" iv. PI. xxvii. 



" Flora der Vorvelt," Tab. 6. Fig. 4. 



"Memoir" vii. 4 " Memoirs" ix. x. 



" Memoir" ix. p. 348. 



localities show no traces. It seems, therefore, that whilst there 

 was a general resemblance in the more conspicuous forms of 

 Carboniferous vegetation from the Arctic circle to the extremities 

 of the southern hemisphere, each locality had special forms that 

 flourished in it either exclusively or at least abundantly, whilst 

 rare elsew here. It would be easy, did time allow, to give many 

 proofs of the truth of this statement. Our experiences at Oldham 

 and Halifax, at Arran and Burntisland, at St. Etienneand Autun, 

 tell us that such is the case. If these few spots which admit of 

 being searched by the aid of the microscope have recently revealed 

 so many hitherto unknown treasures, is it not fair to conclude 

 that corresponding novelties would have been furnished by all the 

 other plant- producing localities if these plants had been preserved 

 in a state capable of being similarly investigated ? 1 have no 

 doubt about this matter ; hence I conclude that there is a vast 

 variety of Carboniferous plants of which we have as yet seen no 

 traces, but every one of which must have played some part, how- 

 ever humble, in the development of the plant races of later ages. 

 We can only hope that time will bring these now hidden witnesses 

 into the hands of future palaeontologists. Meanwhile, though 

 far from wishing to check the construction of any legitimate 

 hypothesis calculated to aid scientific inquiry, I would remind 

 every too ambitious student that there is a haste that retards 

 rather than promotes progress ; that arouses opposition rather 

 than produces conviction ; and that injures the cause of science by 

 discrediting its advocates. 



NOTES 



We are glad to be able to publish this week an article by a 

 distinguished foreign botanist on Bentham and Hooker's great 

 work, "Genera Flantarum." 



We regret to announce the death, on the 15th inst., ot 

 the eminent physicist, M. Joseph-Antoine- Ferdinand Plateau, 

 Emeritus Professor at the University of Ghent. Professor 

 Plateau was a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Member 

 of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and Corresponding 

 Member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. He was in his 

 eighty-second year. 



Admiral Sir Richard Collinson, K.C.B., Deputy Master 

 of the Trinity Corporation, died last week at his residence, 

 Haven Green, Ealing. He was born in 181 1 at Gateshead, of 

 which place his father was rector. He entered the navy in 1823, 

 was employed in various surveying expeditions under Captain 

 Belcher and others from 1 83 1 to 1839, took an active part in the 

 first Chinese war, and remained afterwards four years on the 

 China coast, making plans of harbours and laying down the 

 coast line. He commanded the expedition, consisting of the 

 Enterprise and Investigator, despatched by the Admiralty in 

 1850 in search of Sir John Franklin and his companions, and on 

 his return to England in 1854 Captain Collinson received the 

 medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his explorations in 

 Arctic regions. He received his promotion to flag rank in 1862, 

 was elected an Elder Brother of the Trinity House in the same 

 year, and has been Deputy Master of that Corporation since 

 1875- 



The death is announced of Mr. Werdermann, the inventor of 

 the well-known semi-incandescent electric light. 



Herr Marno, the well-known explorer of North Central 

 Africa, has died at Khartoum. 



The Astronomische Gesellschaft met in Vienna last week. 



The Lord President of the Committee of Council on Education 

 has appointed Valentine Ball, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of 

 Geology and Mineralogy in the University of Dublin, Director 

 of the Dublin Museum of Science and Art. Prof. V. Ball is the 

 brother of the Astronomer Royal for Ireland, and the author ot 

 several interesting and important works, among which may be 

 enumerated ''The Economic Geology of India" and "Experi. 

 ences of Jungle Life in India " ; his appointment is regarded 

 as in every way an excellent one. In addition to his geological 



