406 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. 



study in affording the materials on which the geologist may found his 

 theoretical speculations." The plates are certainly beautiful and also 

 faithful, and they have been largely drawn upon by later authors. A 

 second edition of the work appeared in 1835. 



Three important papers by Brongniart appeared during the same year 

 in the "Annales des sciences naturelles" (Tome IV, pp. 23, 200, 417), 

 one of which has just been referred to. Sir Alexander Crichton's me- 

 moir on the climate of the antediluvian world "* attracted considerable 

 attention and was copied into several of the scientific journals on the 

 continent. 



During 1826 few results were made known, and the only monograph 

 of special note that appeared in 1827 was Jaeger's " Pflanzenversteiner- 

 ungen,""^ which was a praiseworthy effort, and although the illustra- 

 tions fall below the standard erected by Schlotheim and Artis, the 

 geognostic treatment has been considered able, and the work is still 

 quoted. 



The year 1828 is without question the most eventful one in the history 

 of paleobotany, since it saw the issue of Brongniart's " Prodrome," and 

 the commencement of his "Histoire des V6g6taux fossiles" (supra, 

 p. 372), which, taken together as they belong, form the solid basis upon 

 which the science has since been erected. We will first consider the 

 "Prodrome," which merely forms an introduction to the other work, not 

 as it is, but as it was, designed by its author to be. The " Histoire" stopped 

 before the cryptogamic series had been finished, but in the " Prodrome" 

 he takes us through the phenogamic series also as he understood it, 

 Brongniart's fundamental conception was that fossil plants were not the 

 less plants, and that so fast as they really became known they should be 

 placed in their proper position in the vegetable series and made to form 

 an integral part of the science of botany. In his classification, which 

 will be given in another place, he therefore had due respect for the 

 natural system as then understood, but he nevertheless felt that geog- 

 nostic considerations must be taken into the account, and he saw, with 

 almost prophetic accuracy, that in passing up through the geologic 

 series higher and higlier forms of vegetable life presented themselves. 

 This seems simple enough to us of this age, and might seem trite to the 

 reader did we not find, several years later, some of the ablest author- 

 ities both in botany and geology warmly contesting it, as we shall pres- 

 ently see. Although unable to understand the complete continuity in 

 the series, as modern evolution requires, and although affected by the 

 Cuvierian idea of successive destructions and re-creations, still he insisted 

 that each successive creation was superior to the one it had replaced 

 and that there had thus been, as it were, a steady progress from the 



""Alexander Criohton. On the Climate of llie Antediluvian World, etc. Annals of 

 Philosophy, Vol. IX, pp. 97, 207. (See especially pp. 99-102.) 



"^Georg Friedrich Jaeger. Ueber die Pflanzenversteinerungen welche in dem Bau- 

 ,ifand8tein von Stuttgart vorkommeu. Stuttgart, 1827. (There is an abstract in 

 French in the Ann. Sci. Nat., Paris, Tome XV, 1828, p. 92.) 



