402 SKETCH OP PALEOBOTANY. 



not regard it possible to identify the plants. For this work he called 

 to his aid Dr. James Edward Smith, president of the Linnsean Society, 

 an accomplished botanist, and together they faithfully compared all the 

 specimens they had. The result was that while a greater or less simi- 

 larity was detected between different ferns and the living genera Pteris, 

 Dicksonia, Osmunda, Polypodium, and Adiantum, Dr. Smith was unwill- 

 ing to say that they actually represented these genera, and he " conject- 

 ured that they were all foreign, and productions of a warm climate." 



In the conclusions which he draws from the facts stated in the first 

 volume of his work, Dr. Parkinson clearly shows that he is still heavily 

 shackled by the current fallacies relating to the subject he has treated. 

 The Deluge is still a potent iniiuence and the "Former World" is not 

 the modern geologist's Paleozoic, nor even the " Vorwelt " of Schlotheim. 

 Great activity in this branch of science followed the appearance of 

 these works. As already shown {supra, p. 371), it was in 1804 that 

 Count Sternberg began to write, though partly instigated by the papers 

 of Faujas de Saint Fond,"^ who still continued his investigations."' 

 Voigt"" (1807) discussed the so-called Psarolithes of the Museum Len- 

 zianum at Jena, and pronounced them fossil polyps, but retracted this 

 decision the next year,'"*' and admitted their vegetable character. Wep- 

 pen"2 (1808) also mentions a number of specimens of petrified wood 

 from the East Indies, Siberia, and various parts of Europe. This 

 question was further treated by Steffens,"^ Oken in his "Lehrbuch 

 der Naturgeschichte,""* Hoflf,"^ and Schlotheim. Martin's "Petrificata 

 Derbiensia""" is regarded as a forerunner of future work in Great Britain 

 on the structure of trunks and on the study of the vegetable remains 

 of the coal-measures. Schlotheim's " Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der 

 Vers teinerun gen in geognostischer Hinsicht""' (1813) was an appeal 

 for greater thoroughness in paleontological research. In 1814 Kieser''"' 

 first pointed out the characteristic structure of coniferous wood which 



"sBemerkuugen iiber die von Faujas de St. Foud beschriebenen fossilen Pflanzen. 

 Botanische Zeitung. No. 4. 29. February, 1804, pp. 48-52. 



1'' Faujas de Saint Fond. Memoirs iu the "Aunales dn museum d'histoire naturelle". 

 Tome VIII, 1806, p. 220; Tome XI, 1808, p. 144; and in the " M^moires," Tome II, 

 1815, p.444 ; Tome V, 1819, p. 162. 



'"Johann Karl Wilhelm Voigt. Kurze miuerogische Bemerkungen. Leonhard's 

 Tasohenbuoh fiir Mineralogie. Erster Jahrgang, pp. 120-124. 



'■" Idem. Loo oit. Zweiter Jahrgang, pp. 385-386. 



'*' J. A. Weppen. Nachricht von einigen besonders merkwHrdigen Versteinerungeu 

 iind Fossilieu seines Kabinets. Leonhard's Tascheiibiich, Band II, p. 178. 



■« Heinrich Steffens. Handbuch der Oiyktoguosie, Halle. 1811, Band I, p. 172-186 



!■" Th. I, p. 300, 1812. 



'«K. E. A. von Hoff. Besohreibung des Trummergebirgs nnd des altern Flotzge- 

 birgs, welche den Thiiringen Wald umgeben. Leouh. Taschenb., Band VIII 1814 

 p. 350. ' 



H6 William Martin. Petrificata Derbiensia; or, Figures and descriptions of Petri- 

 factions collected in Derbyshire. 4to, Wigan, 1809. 



"' Leonhard's Taschenbuch, Band VII, 1813, p. 1. 



»« Dietrich Georg Kieser. Elemente der Phytonomie, oder Grundzlige der Anato- 

 mie der Pflanzen. Jena, 1815. Appendix. 



