ii BRITISH GRAPTOLITES. 



CHAPTER I. 



First Peiiiod, 1727 to 1850. 



There seems but little doubt that Mao-nus von Bromell, of 

 1727. . . 



Vo) Bromell Upsala, Sweden, must be credited with the first notice and 



" Lithographice description of the fossils which w^e now call Grai)tolites, 



Suecause," although he did not use the word " Clraptolithus," nor did he 



' Acta literaria Sueciae gjyg figures of these fossils. In the years 1720^9 he brought 



psa lae, vo s. i, ii, ^^^ j^-^ ^^^^k entitled " Lithoofraphias Suecanse." In this he 



1720-9. 



gives, among other things, a description of a collection of 



fossils belonging to himself. This work was published in the ' Acta literaria 

 Sueciae Upsalise ' (1720-9), and also separately in two parts, the Si)ecimen ijvimum 

 in 1724, and the Specimen secundum in 1727. 



In the Specimen pvhnum there is no reference which can be considered as 

 applying to Graptolites ; but in the Specimen secundum the Articulus primus is 

 entitled " Concerning a moss incrusted and delineated in stone." The example 

 No. 1 given in this section is described as " a rock of ashy colour, fissile, foetid, 

 called ' SAvinestone ' (lapis suillus), exhibiting on the surface a black tangle of 



branched moss imprinted as with a fine pencil The moss which is 



seen delineated on the above-mentioned rock is of a stony nature, hair-like, not 

 penetrating the actual substance of the rock — as one can see in some of the 

 Florentine and German dendrites,- -but spreading its delicate form on the outer- 

 most surface." 



Tullberg, to whose valuable memoir, "On the Graptolites described byHisinger 

 and the older Swedish Authors," ' K. Svenska Vet. Akad. Handl.,' 1882, we are 

 especially indebted, remarks that von Bromell elsewhere uses the term " lapis 

 suillus " for real anthraconite or swinestone (concretions occurring in the alum 

 shales of Sweden), and it may therefore be inferred with fair certainty that he 

 refers to that rock in this case. If so, the fossil which von Bromell describes as 

 a " branched moss," and compares with a dendrite, is probably the Dicttjonema 

 Jiahelliforme of Eichwald, a fossil which frequently occurs in the balls of anthra- 

 conite in the alum shales of Westrogothia. 



Von liromell's Articulus secundiis is headed " Concerning the imprints and 

 remains of leaves in various rocks." Example ;> in this section is described as 

 " Leafy impressions and traces of different plants in a black fissile rock from Mt. 

 Dalaberg in Westrogothia ; " and the author remarks, " The true names of these 

 leaves I cannot at present state ; foi- wliile some, by their pinnules, seem to recall 

 ferns, others by their narrowness and length a kind of grass, some by their 

 pointedness and tenuity a willow, others the heather and small water-lily, yet I 



