368 Canadian Record of Science. 



he was always ready, in the kindest and most genial 

 spirit, to give the benefit of his adviee and information to 

 his fellow laborers in every part of the world. His work 

 was characterized by much discrimination and care, and 

 by a judicious attention to the geological horizons; but, 

 like many other pakeobotanists, he was occasionally 

 carried away by his enthusiasm so as to recognize as 

 plants mere imitative markings. This was especially the 

 case in the controversies in which he took part respecting 

 the nature of certain markings on rocks whose algal nature 

 had been maintained by Delgado and others, while to 

 Northorst and to palaeontologists generally who were 

 familiar with the tracks of animals and the imitative 

 tracings on the surfaces of aqueous deposits, they were of 

 animal or of inorganic origin. 



In conjunction with Professor Marion, Saporta published 

 a work on the Evolution of Plants, which forms three 

 volumes of the French International Library of Science. 

 It abounds with curious information of a very suggestive 

 character, but was perhaps too ambitious in the present 

 state of knowledge. This the authors frankly admit, 

 stating in conclusion that they can but point out some 

 landmarks to their successors, "who may decipher the 

 inscriptions of which we can but spell out some letters." 



But though an evolutionist, Saporta was by no means 

 an agnostic. He saw in the grand succession of vegetable 

 forms a great and profound design, related to the inorganic 

 world and its mutations on the one hand and to the 

 animal kingdom on the other. He sums up this conclu- 

 sion in his " Monde de Plantes " in the following words, 

 which may serve as an example of his style and of his 

 habit of thought in the wider problems of his science : — 



" Mais, si Ton remonte de phenomene en phenomene 

 plus haut que les apparances mobiles et contingentes, il 

 semble que Ton aboutisse forcement a quelque chose 

 d'entier, d'immuable et de superieur, qui serait l'expression 



