WAKD.J VIEWS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 397 



later Antoine de Jussieui" published his celebrated memoir upon the 

 coal plants of Saint Ohaumont, in which he discussed the differences 

 between them and European ferns and their resemblance to those of 

 the tropics. 



The idea of the tropical facies of fossil plants was thenceforward fre- 

 quently put forth, as by Lesser "^ (1735), Oapelleri^" (1740), Sauvages'" 

 (1743), etc. Parsons '^^ (1757) declared that some of the petrified fruits 

 found on the Island of Sheppey were " absolutely exotics," and Dulac ^^^ 

 (1765) discovered in the coal mines of Saint Etienne, now so carefully 

 explored by Grand' Eury, impressions which he likened to American 

 ferns. Walch leaned toward the exotic theory, and declared that so 

 imperfect were the remains that their true identity could not be made 

 out, and that the tendency had been too much to imagine indigenous 

 species to exist where they were in reality foreign ones. He pointed 

 out the fact that the fossil plants of England, Prance, and Germany 

 were substantially the same, which is iiot the case to any such extent 

 with the living floras, and even where no similarity with living plants 

 could be traced he had no better explanation than that they must be- 

 long to unknown exotic species. 



As intermediate between the exotic theory, or that of transportation 

 by the Flood, and the extermination theory, or that of destruction by 

 the Elood, and as, to some extent, an initial stage of the latter, there 

 was called in a degeneration theory, which Volk maun'" sets forth as 

 clearly as it was probably ever conceived by any of the contemporary 

 writers, which certainly is not saying a great deal. According to this 

 theory the antediluvian vegetation was of a far higher order than that 

 of postdiluvian origin, and contained none of the thorns, thistles, and 

 other scourges with which we are familiar. It also contained many 

 useful and wholesome fruit-bearing trees, of which our modern forests 

 are the degenerate representatives. Ideas like these were frequentlj' 

 expressed, and even Buffon entertained some notion of a state of faunal 

 and floral degeneration. 



"* Examen des causes des impressions des plantes marquees sur certaines pierres 

 dcs environs de Saint Chaumont. M^m. de I'aoad. royale des sciences. Paris, 1718, 

 p. 287. It is remarkable tliat both Brongniart (Hist, des v6g. foss., Tome I, p. 3) and 

 Schimper (Traits de pal. v6g., Tome I, p. 4) sliould have committed the error of credit- 

 ing this paper to Bernard insbead of Antoine de Jussieu. The former would have been 

 only nineteen years of age ; but Brongniart makes the further mistake of assigning 

 the date as 1708 (loc. cit., foot-note 1), which would have made him only nine years 

 old. See also a second memoir, loc. cit., 1721. 



"'Friedrich Christ. Lesser. Lithotheologie, oder noturhistorische und geistliche 

 Betrachtung der Steine. Hamburg, 1735, p. 642. 



120 Maurus Antonius Capeller. Sciagraphia lithologica. Gedani, 1740, p. 6. 



'2' L'Abb6 de Sauvages. Sur diff^rentes petrifications, etc. M6m. de I'acad. roy. 

 des sciences. 1743, p. 415. 



122 James Parsons. Philosophical Transactions. 1757, Vol. L, p. 397. 



123 Alleon Dulac. M^moire pour servir ^ I'histoire naturelle des provinces de Lyon- 

 nois, Forez, et Beaujolois. Lyon, 1765. Tome II. 



1^ Silesia subterranea, p. 92. 



