366 C. SCHUCHERT THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE OF PALEONTOLOGY 



natural than that paleontologists or those trained in paleontology and 

 stratigraphy should be the teachers of this subject? The income so nec- 

 essary for life can therefore be made out of a related subject, enabling 

 at least some of these teachers to do research in one of the divisions of 

 paleontology. 



In all of Canada there has long been no active paleobotanist, and the 

 coal fields of the Dominion are calling for at least two such workers. 

 However, we seem to see one bud that will soon break forth into pro- 

 ductivity, and let us hope that he may be a worthy follower of Sir Wil- 

 liam Dawson, who did so much to develop not only the paleobotany, but 

 even more the geology and paleontology of eastern Canada. In our own 

 country no new man has entered paleobotany in a dozen years. We know, 

 however, two budding paleobotanists, and are glad to note that their 

 elders say both give promise of much good work. 



Another bad feature is that almost the whole output of paleobotanic 

 study nowadays relates to Mesozoic and Cenozoic times, since the only 

 leading worker on Paleozoic plants has, through the force of circum- 

 stances, gone into administration. What a loss this is for American 

 paleobotany and stratigraphy ! And all the more so since the European 

 leaders in Paleozoic botany are so few and so rapidly going on to their 

 reward. We pray that the United States Geological Survey will return 

 this man to the field which he has so eminently made his own. 



There should in the near future be found places for at least six addi- 

 tional paleobotanists — ^two in the Geological Survey of Canada, at least 

 one at some Canadian university, at least one on the newly organized 

 State survey of Pennsylvania, and two more in the universities of this 

 country. Then, and not until then, can we say that American paleo- 

 botany is in a healthy state. But, even if our hopes are realized, the 

 science of paleobotany will not properly and completely function until 

 there be more than the single worker who looks at fossil plants from the 

 structural side. Paleobotanists, like invertebrate paleontologists, are too 

 much the followers of the scientific fashion of the day, devotees of the 

 time value of fossils. 



American paleobotanists, let me add, have not yet taken up seriously 

 the great desideratum of popularizing their science, as can also be said 

 of the invertebrate workers. We need books for the intellectual lay- 

 man — and by layman here is meant not only the educated person, but 

 the paleontologist and geologist as well — setting forth in easy language 

 and in interesting style the grander features of the extraordinary plant 

 worlds of the later Paleozoic and the earlier Mesozoic. What more inter- 

 esting or stranger flora has there ever been than that of the Coal Period ? 



