146 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 32. 



greater injustice was done to Prof. William- 

 son than to Saporta. I was acquainted 

 with his work at that tiaie only from the 

 great series of memoirs which he was pub- 

 lishing in the Philosophical Transactions, 

 and which I was onlj' able to consult in the 

 ponderous volumes of that serial. I there- 

 fore limited myself almost exclusively to a 

 mention of that work, 12 numbers of which 

 had then appeared. The earliest paper re- 

 lating to fossil plants with which I was then 

 acquainted was dated 1842, and I therefore 

 provisionallj^ gave this date as the begin- 

 ning of his work on fossil plants. I soon 

 after collected titles, some of which go back 

 to 1836,* but in a letter from him dated 

 June 16th, 1886, thanking me for this poor 

 mention of his name, he said : " Your only 

 mistake is in starting me on my paleobo- 

 tanical career in 1842, since I am the same 

 W. C. Williamson, Jun., whose name you 

 will find so frequently in the Fossil Flora 

 of Lindley and Hutton. You will see that 

 my labors began in 1833, so that I have 

 now been in the field 56 years — a regular 

 old stager. ' ' I was indeed aware that a ' Mr. 

 William Williamson, Jun.,' had contributed 

 to Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora a large 

 number of notes and sketches, all of which 

 had been used by those authors and grate- 

 fully acknowledged, and I suspected that 

 this might have been the same Professor 

 Williamson, but as these notes all referred 

 to impressions of plants from the Oolite of 

 Yorkshire, while his chief labors had been 

 on the internal structure of Carboniferous 

 plants, it was natural that I should doubt 

 their identity. I am now happy to be able 

 to correct his correction and show that his 

 absolutely first contribution to that work 

 was made in 1832 instead of 1833. f 



*See the Proo. Geol. Soc, London, for Nov. 16, 

 1836, Vol. II., p. 429. 



t Tlie Fossil Flora of Great Britain by John Lindley 

 and William Hutton, Vol. I., London, 1831-1833 

 (the first fascicle, pp. 1-48, pi. i.-xiv., was issued in 



The same year in which I received the 

 above mentioned letter there occurred a 

 transaction, which, though trifling in itself, 

 serves in an admirable way to illustrate 

 Professor Williamson's personal character. 

 Being very desirous to obtain the reprints 

 of his memoirs ' On the Organization of the 

 Fossil Plants of the Coal Measure,' from 

 the Philosophical Transactions, as well as 

 many other works relating to fossil plants, 

 I had prepared an extensive list of such 

 works, including this one, fi-om a catalogue 

 of Dulau & Co., Soho Square, London, and 

 requested the Geological Survey to purchase 

 the books. The invoice arrived substanti- 

 ally complete with the exception of Pro- 

 fessor Williamson's work. Much time 

 elapsed and the work did not come, further 

 correspondence showing that it had not 

 been possible to obtain it. I therefore wrote 

 direct to Professor Williamson, begging him 

 if possible to spare a set to Messrs. Dulau 

 & Co., for our use in America. The very 

 next steamer brought the full set direct to 

 me without cost and another characteristic 

 letter, from which I make the following ex- 

 tract : 



" Your letter of October 2Sth has thrown 

 light upon what appeared to me a queer 

 afiair. I received an application from 

 Messrs. Dulau for a set of thj memoirs; I 

 replied that I had only three spare copies 

 left, that I never had sold a copy and that 

 I much preferred not doing so, since I had 

 rather reserve them and give them to some 

 1841 and the second, pp. 49-1G6, pi. xv.-lix., in 1832. 

 His first sketch, which was that of Cyelopteris Beanii, 

 constitutes pi. xliv. , and is described on pp. 127-129. 

 It was found by his father, but a note signed by ' W- 

 Williamson, Jun.,' on p. 127, shows that he had much 

 to do with it, and although it is not stated that the 

 sketch was made by him, there is every probability 

 that it was. An examination of the entire work 

 ■shows that he contributed no less than 30 of the species 

 described in it, constituting nearly all from the Oolite 

 of Yorkshire, and that in every case he not only fur- 

 nished the specimen but an accurate drawing which 

 tjhe authors always used). 



