412 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY 



Eobert Goppert, of Breslau, whose career we have already briefly 

 sketched, and whose death since the first draft of that sketch was made 

 occasioned an unavoidable shock notwithstanding the ripened age which 

 our biographic'notice showed him to Lave attained {supra, p. 373). 



No important works on fossil plants appeared in 1835, and the princi- 

 pal production of 1836, in this line of research, was Goppert's " Systema 

 Filicum Fossilinm,""^ which had probably been in preparation for 

 many years. It was a masterly effort and fittingly betokened the great 

 career of its author. The historical introduction remains the best re- 

 view of paleobotanical science that has ever been written, and shows that 

 the literature of the subject had long been a favorite pursuit of Dr. 

 Goppert. Nearly all the figures of fossil ferns that had been drawn by 

 the early authors were discussed and identified by the light of more 

 recent knowledge. Eigid comparisons were instituted between fossil 

 and living species, and systematic descriptions of the former so far as 

 then known were introduced. In the forty-four plates that accompany 

 the work are figured most of the Silesian species, which the author de- 

 clares to be more numerous than those of any other country. 



Goppert's contributions during the next year (1837) were numerous "' 

 and important, and, taken with the equally valuable ones of Brong- 

 niart,"* render this year a good one for their branch of science. 



The year 1838 was still more fruitful in published results, as many as 

 a dozen memoirs having been produced in Europe. One of the most 

 important of these has already been mentioned"^ {supra, p. 380), in 

 which the first serious attempt was made to determine dicotyledonous 

 genera by the aid of the nervation of their leaves. 



In this year also appeared the eighth number of Sternberg's "Flora 

 der Yorwelt," containing Corda's " Skizzen zur vergleichenden Phyto- 

 tomie vor- und jetztweltlichen Pflanzen," whose merits have already 

 been referred to {supra, p. 371). 



The year 1839 produced the first contributions of both Geinitz {supra, 

 p. 374) and Binney,"" thus adding two important names to the roll of 

 colaborers in this field. The Count of Milnster's " Beitrage zur Petre- 



'«2 Systema Filicum Fossilium : Die Fossllen Farnkrauter. Nov. Ac^. Acad. Caes. 

 Leop. Car., Tom. XVII, Suppl., pp. 1-76. 



's^UebersicM der bis jetzt bekannteu fosailen Pflanzen. In Germar's Hanrtbucli 

 der Mineralogie, 1837. 



Idem. Two papers ou fossil wood : Neues Jabrbuch fUr Mineralogie, 1837, p. 403, 

 and Verbandl. d. scbleg. Gesell., 1837, pp. 68-76; and an important one on the pro- 

 cess of petrifaction : Poggendorf s Annalen, Band XLII, 1837, S. 593. 



is^Comptes Eendus, Paris, 1837, Tome V, p. 403; Proc. verb, de la soc. pliilnin., 

 1837, p. 99; M^m. de I'Acad. Roy., Tome XVI, 1838, p. 397. 



'»■' Sul sistema vascolare delle foglie, considerato come carattere distiutivo per la 

 detcrminazione delle filliti. N. Ann. d. So. Nat. Bologna, 1838 Ann I Tom I m 

 343-390, PI. VII-XIII. ' 



'™ " On a microscopic vegetable skeleton found in peat, near Gainsborough." Brit- 

 ish Association Report, 1839 (Part II), pp. 71, 72. 



