56 Dr. W. C. Williamson on 



a comprehensive, highly organised, and ancient family, that, 

 for a long period, held its head high in the vegetable kingdom, 

 whilst the living Equisetums can only be regarded as sub- 

 ordinate and extremely degenerate descendants of that 

 illustrious family of which they are now the sole represen- 

 tatives. Influenced by these views, I wrote in November, 

 1 87 1, "After fairly weighing the evidence for and against 

 the admission of the Calamites amongst the true Equi- 

 setacecBy it appears to me that the reasons against doing so 

 preponderate over those which favour such a course. To 

 disturb the generally accepted definitions of a family of 

 living plants for the sake of doing this seems to me unwise. 

 I should therefore propose the recognition of a distinct 

 family of Calamitacecey which, from their complex organi- 

 sation, must necessarily stand high up in the great Crypto- 

 gamic division of the vegetable kingdom. (" On the 

 Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal Measures : 

 Parti. Calamites." Phil. Trans.^ iSyi). My suggestion has 

 now been acted upon in the wide recognition of such a 

 family, but with the name of Calamarice. 



Some years ago the specimens in my cabinet had become 

 so numerous that the convenience of reference made it 

 necessary to arrange them numerically, as well as to prepare 

 a systematic catalogue of them. This latter, in its present 

 form, fills two large folio volumes, in which, not only the 

 peculiarities of each numbered specimen are noted, but any 

 special significance which those peculiarities seemed to 

 possess are recorded. The attainment of these objects made 

 another movement possible. In my Part XIII., published in 

 1887, in the four subsequent memoirs, and in my monograph 

 on Stigmaria ficoidesy published by the Palaeontographical 

 Society, I have attached to each figure and description 

 the symbol C.N., along with the number which the specimen 

 so described bears in the cabinet and folio catalogue. I 

 believe that the adoption of this method will be found to 



