2 Seward: The Jurassic Flora of Yorkshire. 
My friend Professor Nathorst has more than once invaded 
these shores, and recently a portion of our island has been 
transported to Sweden by his pupil Mr. Halle to enrich the 
famous palzobotanical museum of Stockholm. By establshing 
a department devoted to the floras of the past, the Swedish 
Academy has set an example which the Trustees of our National 
collections would do well to follow. Paleobotany is still 
without a representative in the British Museum. All of us, 
whose aim is to advance scientific research, welcome the 
foreigner who is attracted by our unrivalled natural museums 
accessible in the Yorkshire cliffs; we feel that the important 
thing is to extract from the records of the rocks all the facts 
we can, either by our own efforts or by assisting those of others. 
I would appeal to that spirit of sportsman-like rivalry which 
we profess to foster as a race, and ask the members of the 
Naturalists’ Union to do their best to demonstrate to our 
friends across the sea that we do not underrate the value of 
the means to our hands of making a more intimate acquaintance 
with the stores of fossil plants still available in local strata. 
I may mention that, with the assistance of a small grant 
from a fund administered by the University of Cambridge, one 
of my colleagues in the Botany School, Mr. Hamshaw Thomas, 
is devoting such time as he can spare to collecting material 
from the plant-bearing strata of the Yorkshire coast; and it 
is my intention to do as much as I can to show that we do not 
intend to be backward in the investigation of the Jurassic 
flora. It is hardly necessary to point out that my words are 
not in any sense the expression of an insular or narrow view. 
Professor Nathorst is a generous and broad-minded student 
of Nature, ever ready to co-operate with others in dividing the 
labour of scientific enquiry and in furthering research by 
every means in his power. There is ample room for us all, 
and the more competition there is, the more likely we shall 
be to emulate the devotion of the earlier naturalists to whom 
allusion has already been made. 
Those who have had any experience of deciphering the 
imperfect remains of ancient floras fully appreciate the diff- 
culties of the task, and realise how necessary it 1s to avoid 
dogmatic statements in regard to conclusions founded on meagre 
data. A complete list of the species recorded from the plant- 
beds of Yorkshire looks imposing, but those who have had a 
hand in its compilation are fully aware that we have still much 
to learn as to the precise systematic position of many of the 
types. What we want is more perfect material, and, if possible, 
petrified specimens, from which we may be able to confirm 
or to correct identifications based on the uncertain and often 
misleading evidence of external characters. 
In the brief account of a few of the Jurassic species which 
Naturalist, 
