Reviews — A. C. SewarcVs Fossil Plants. 231 



labours of past generations of workers, he and his Professors also 

 might be priggishly discoursing with Dr. John Woodward on the 

 exact time of year when the Deluge took place ; or discover with 

 Dr. Scheuchzer, of Zurich, in a giant fossil salamander from 

 Oeningen, the image of " Homo diluvii testis" 



Under the subject of Nomenclature and the Eule of Priority, 

 Mr. Seward writes: '•'Some writers would have us conform in all 

 cases to this rule of priority, which they consistently adhere to 

 apart from all considerations of convenience or long-established 



custom A name may hai^e been in use for, saj', eighty 



years, and has become perfectly familiar as-the recognized designation 

 of a particular fossil ; it is discovered, however, that an older name 

 was proposed for the same species ninety years ago, and therefore, 

 according to the priority rule, we must accustom ourselves to a new 

 name in place of one which is thoroughly established by long vsage." 

 In all this, and much more under this head, we are heartily in 

 accord with the author, and would go so far as to follow the 

 example of Pope Gregory in the " Ingoldsby Penance," and say — 



' ' Go fetch me a book ! go fetch me a bell 

 As big as a dustman's ! and a candle as "well : 

 I '11 send him — where, good manners won't let me tell ! " 



In Part II, Systematic, the author begins with the simplest type 

 of very minute organisms, the Thallophyta, as Perediniales (small 

 single-celled organisms) ; he then treats of Coccospheres and 

 Ehabdospheres. Peredinium was described by Ehrenberg in 183B 

 from Cretaceous beds in Saxony, while the others occur in the 

 English Chalk and Lias, and all have been found nearly everywhere 

 in sea-water. Other microscopic bodies are also noticed by the 

 author, as the Chroococcacea3, Girvnnella, Zonatrichites ; Schizomycetes 

 ( Bacilli) ; Algee. Among these last, the student is warned against 

 the many spurious fossil organisms pointed out by Williamson, 

 Nathorst, and others, which simulate plant-remains. Then follow 

 accounts of true fossil Algae and of objects simulating Algae. To 

 these succeed recent and fossil Diatoms ; Chlorophyceee, Siphonese, 

 and Confervoidese ; Khodophyceje ; Phjeopbyceee ; Myxomycetes ; 

 Fungi. Most of these forms are much too obscure, and involve 

 problems far too difficult for the elementary student to attack. In 

 the Characese we begin to reach forms which even the young student 

 of palasobotany may readily recognize and appreciate, occurring as 

 they do in the Jurassic and Wealden, and in many of the Tertiaries 

 of England and France. 



Thence we pass on to the second half of the book, viz., the Mosses, 

 the Equisetales or EquisetaceEe, with chapters on Catamites and 

 Spheyiophylluyn. Here structui'es of stems, roots, foliage, the spore- 

 cones and spores of these plants, give abundant subjects for illus- 

 tration, and we should have been glad if more could have been 

 giA'en had space permitted. A list of authors and their works 

 referred to in the text and an index usefully and appropriately end 

 this volume. 



