400 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. 



necessarily leaves out many of the important facts in the history of the 

 subject. It also fails to connect the principal points into an unbroken 

 series and to correlate events and discoveries into a systematic whole. 

 The chiefly chronologic treatment which will now be presented, while 

 still lacking in philosophic method and otherwise defective, will aim to 

 supply most of the omissions referred to, and will perhaps be more use- 

 ful than any other form of treatment which could well be made within 

 the limited space which can be devoted to it. 



The new epoch was auspiciously ushered in on the first year of the 

 century by the memoir, already once referred to {supra p. 371), of the 

 Baron von Schlotheim in Hoff's Magazine, in which he applied the 

 same reasoning to plants that Blumenbach had done to animals. 



Leopold von Buch'^g (i802) inaugurated the remarkable discussion as 

 to whether the coal plants actually grew on the spot where they are 

 found in the carbonized or silicified state, which was continued by Steff- 

 ens,"" Leonhard,"! Noeggerath,"^ Sternberg, Brongniart, and Lindley 

 and Hutton,"^ but is by no means settled, and still goes on in France, 

 England, and the United States. Two papers, by M. Faujas de Saint 

 Fond,"^ breathing the true scientific spirit of research appeared at about 

 the same time and attracted much interest. 



In 1804 appeared Von Schlotheim's epoch-making work, " Flora der 

 Vorwelt," as it is now universally quoted, although the author himself 

 merely entitled it a description of remarkable plant impressions and 

 petrifactions, a contribution to the flora of the former (or primeval) 

 world. To us this seems modest enough, but in view of the history of 

 paleontology which we have been considering, we may readily see that this 

 second part of the title was a bold declaration, and accordingly we find 

 him defending it in his introduction by these words : " The petrifactions 

 which so early engaged the attention of investigators, and which, with- 

 out doubt, afforded one of the first incentives to the founding of mineral 

 collections and to the earnest study of mineralogy and geology, have, 

 as is well known, since Walch began to arrange them systematically, 

 been for a long time, as well in as outside of Germany, almost wholly 



'-' Leopold von Bucli. Geognostisclie Beobachtungen aiif Reisen durch Deutschland 

 uud Italieu. Band I, Berlin, 1802. S. 92. 



"" Heinricli Steffens. Geognostisch-geologische Aufsatze. Hamburg, 1810. S. 267. 



"' K. C. Von Leonhard. Bedentung nnd Stand der Mineralogie. Frankfort, 1816. 

 S. 70, 71. 



i»= Jacob Noeggerath. Ueber aufrect im Gebirgsgestein eingesohlosseue foasile Baum- 

 stamme und andere Vegetabllien. Historisohea und Beobachtung. Bonn, 1819-'21. 



'^3 Fossil Flora of Great Britain, Vol. II, pp. xvii, xx, xxii. 



"■' Barth61emy Faujas de Saint Fond. Description des mines de Turffa des environs 

 de Bruhl et de Liblar, connues sous la denomination impropre de mines de terre d'om- 

 bre, on terre brune de Cologne. Annales du Museum d'histoire natnrelle, Tome I, 

 pp. 445-460, avec 2 plancbes. Paris, 1802. (See PI. XXIX.) 



Idem. Notice sur desplantes fossiles de diverses espfeoes qu' on trouve dans les couches 

 fossiles d'un schiste marneux, reconvert par des laves, dans les environs de Eoche- 

 sauve, d^partement de I'Ardfeche. (too. mt. Tome II, 1803, pp. 339-344, PI. LVI et 

 LVn.) 



