^-'■«'] PIONEERS IN PALEOBOTANY. 403 



has had such an important bearing on the study of petrified woods. In 

 1796 nagen"^ had published a memoir on the origin of amber, which 

 was supplemented by Dr. John, of Cologne, in his large worfci™ on that 

 substance, discussing it from almost every conceivable point of view. 

 Eelative to the kind of tree that is supposed to have produced the am- 

 ber he says (p. 168) it is very probable that a species of the genus Finns 

 formerly grew in Prussia which, as is the case with many other plants, 

 is now wholly extinct. 



Passing over some less important memoirs we come to that of the 

 Rev. Henry Steinhauer " On Fossil Eeliquia of Unknown Vegetables 

 in the Coal Strata.''"^ Pew papers of this period are more often or 

 approvingly quoted than this. Although presented to an American so- 

 ciety by one of its members, then a resident of Bethlehem, Pa., it treats 

 the subject in a thoroughly general way. The author had evidently 

 spent the greater part of his life in Great Britain, and was well ac- 

 quainted with British localities and British fossils. In fact, no mention 

 whatever is made of any American locality, and the pajjer would have 

 been perfectly at home in any of the scientific journals of England. 

 The remark, therefore, of M. Schimper^^^ to the effect that Steinhauer 

 had laid the foundations of vegetable paleontology in America by a 

 study of the vegetable impressions of the coal-measures of this country, 

 seems not to be historically accurate. Probably the most important 

 feature of this able paper is the attempt made in it to classify the veg- 

 etable remains of the Carboniferous. No special mention has thus far 

 been made of similar previous attempts by Scheuchzer, Walch, Scloth- 

 eim, etc., because the more complete treatment of this important subject 

 is reserved for a future place as an independent and connected study, 

 and we will not anticipate this branch of our subject here. 



Omitting a number of works in which vegetable fossils are either ex- 

 pressly treated, or least casually referred to, as byBallenstedt andKru- 

 ger,^*^ Eaumer,^^* Schweigger,'^' d'Aubuisson de Voisins,^^" and Mlsson,'" 



■*K. G. Hagen. De succini ortu. Ueber den Ursprnng des Bernsteins. Riga, 1796 ; 

 see, also, Gilbert's Annalen, Band XIX, 1805, p. 181. 



i™J. F. John. Naturgesohichte des Saooins, oder des eogenannten Bernsteins. 

 Koln, 1816. 



161 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia, Vol. I, 1818, 



p. 265. 



153 Traits de Pal. Veg. Tome I, p. 16. 



■s* J. G. F. Ballenstedt. Die Urwelt. 3. Aufl. Quedlinburg, 1819. 



Johan Gottlob Kriiger. Geschichte der Urwelt. Leipzig, 1820, Bd. II, pp. 95-254. 



Ballenstedt & Kriiger. Archiv fur die Entdeckung in der Urwelt. 6 Bde. Qued- 

 lingburg, 1819-1824. 



1" Carl von Eaumer. Das Gebirge Niederschlesiens . . . geognostisch dargestellt. 

 Berlin, 1819, p. 166 (Anmerkungen). 



156 ^_ p, Sohweigger. Beobachtnngen auf naturhistorischen Eeisen. Berlin, 1819. 



'56 D'Aubuisson de Volsins. Traits de G^ognosie. 1819, Tome II, pp. 294, 298. 



'5'Sveno Nilsson. Om Forsteningar och Aftryck af tropiska tradslag, Blad, orm- 

 bunkar och rorvaxter m. m. samt tradkol, funna i ett Sandstenslager i Sk^ne. Kongl. 

 Vetenstaps Akademiens Handlingar, 1820, pp. 108-122, 278-293. 



