60 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
of observations therefore was now necessary, and a systematic method of 
collating these observations was wanted. On the mineralogical side this 
had been, to an extent, accomplished by Werner and his followers. In 
Botany and Zoology, classification had also been effected, but in Palzo- 
botany the system of classification was still crude. In 1818 Steinhauer 1? 
described Coal Measure plants in the United States, and, for the first 
time, used the binomial nomenclature, a course that was followed two 
years later by Schlotheim in his Petrifaktenkunde. Schlotheim? and 
Sternberg 14 had each devised classifications, and Martius, in 1822, 
published a paper giving reasoned comparisons between fossil and recent 
plants. Although Martius had an unrivalled knowledge of the Brazilian 
flora, his knowledge of fossils was not so extensive, and his classification 
was therefore defective. Artis, in his Antediluvian Phytology, 1825, pre- 
sented a résumé of these attempts at classification, and also added that of 
Brongniart (1822). His own classification, however, was a modification 
of that of Martius. 
In the introduction to the Histoire des Végétaux fossiles, Brongniart 
discussed yet another method of classification of fossil plants. He used 
the names of living genera if the fossils could be actually identified with 
living types, modifications of these names where they were more or less 
related to living forms, and new names where no such relationship could 
be established. In other words a modification of the classification of the 
botanist. His work was a tremendous step, in advance, and although he 
made mistakes (such as classing graptolites as algae) his work is still one of 
the outstanding memoirs in fossil botany, and a book of reference for the 
stratigraphical “geologist. The reason is not far to seek, for, to accurate 
descriptions, he added beautiful and meticulously drawn plates. While 
his work deals with impressions, and these chiefly of vegetative parts of 
plants, his classification is based on ‘ form’ similarities, and is not com- 
parable in detail with the classification of the botanist ; yet he brought 
order out of chaos, and has given a classification that is as useful to the 
geologist as to the biologist. The study of fossil plants had therefore 
attained a scientific basis, and Brongniart well deserves the title of the 
Father of Fossil Botany. 
A brief digression will not be out of place to ascertain, if possible, the 
general views of geologists at this date. ‘The end of the eighteenth and 
beginning of the nineteenth century not only saw the publication of several 
works in fossil botany, as we have noted, but other branches of science 
were even more prolific in researches. Werner’s teaching was every- 
where evident in Geology, Cuvier was probably the chief exponent of 
Natural History, and the workers in other sciences had no reason to doubt 
the catastrophic philosophy of these leaders. Hutton and Lamarck were 
both discredited in their lifetime, and, although they had shown ‘ the 
writing on the wall,’ it was on the wall of the dungeon, or more 
12 Steinhauer, Tvans. Phil. Soc. Amer., vol. 1, 1818. 
18 Schlotheim, Petrifaktenkunde, 1820. 
14 Sternberg, Versuch einer Geognostich-Botanischen Darstellung der Flora dey 
Vorwelt, Leipzig, 1820-25. 
15 Martius, De plantis nonnullis antediluvianis, Ratisbonae, 1822. 
