418 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. 



der Vorwelt."^"' It is a large work in folio, with 128 pages of text and 

 sixty magnificent plates, chiefly devoted to the illustration of the inter- 

 nal structure of petrified and carbonized trunks in various families of 

 the vegetable kingdom and at different geological horizons, but mainly 

 in the Carboniferous. As the only considerable work on this subject 

 since Witham's [supra, p. 373), it was as much superior to that work as 

 the aids to research were greater than they had been twelve years ear- 

 lier. 



In the same year also appeared Reuss's " Versteinerungen der bohm- 

 ischen Kreideformation," to which Corda contributed the fossil plants 

 in a chapter of sixteen quarto pages, with six plates executed with the 

 same care and thoroughness that is characteristic of all his work. 



One other masterly production, viz., Goppert's Amber-Flora, in Ber- 

 endt's great work on amber,'"" will conclude the enumeration for the year 

 1846. His prolonged investigations into the lignite beds of Europe and 

 his study of the amber found in Silesia naturally led to this broader un- 

 dertd,king and fittingly prepared him for it. He begins with a chapter 

 on the amber tree. Of this he remarks that the pieces of wood that 

 occur in and along with amber bear so close a resemblance to the spe- 

 cimens of lignite in his collection, that he does not for a moment hesi- 

 tate, at least provisionally, to express theopinion that the amber of Prus- 

 sia is probably derived from one species, which, from its similarity to 

 the Ooniferae of the present epoch, he refers to the extinct genus Pinites, 

 and which he designates as Pinites succinifer, and fully characterized 

 in the systematic part of the work. This follows, beginning with a list 

 of the species thus far found in amber, of which he enumerates fifty- 

 three. He finds six other species of Pinites and twenty of Ooniferse. 

 There are ten cellular plants (chiefly mosses and Hepaticse), one fern, 

 one gnetaceous species (Ephedrites), and twenty-one true Dicotyledons. 

 The descriptions come next, and are accompanied by appropriate and 

 very elaborate illustrations. 



Very little idea of the true geologic age of these fossils is derivable 

 from any of the statements contained in this work, either by Goppert or 

 Berendt, and it is still quite the practice to refer these forms to the 

 amber simply, without further attempt to fix their position. But in a 

 paper read before the Silesian Society, May 11, 1853, Dr. Goppert ex- 

 pressed himself very clearly on this point. He said: "The manner in 

 which this flora is composed, as well as the complete absence of one 

 tropical or even subtropical form, points to the modern age of the amber 

 formation, which we must unquestionably refer to the latest strata of 

 the Tertiary formation, to the Pliocene division.""i By this time the 



•'™ Beitrage znr Flora der Vorwelt, von August Joseph Corda, mit secliszig Tafeln 

 Abbildungeu. Prag., 1845. 



^'o Georg Carl Berendt. Die im Bernstein beflndlioheu organiscbou K.sto der Vor- 

 welt. Erstcr Band, Berlin, 1845. I. Abtbeilung : Der Bernstein uud die iu Ihm be- 

 findlicben- Pflanzonreste der Vorwelt (chiefly by Goppert). 



^"Jahreabericht d. Schles. Gesellschaft fiir vaterlandische Cultur, 1853 (Breslau. 

 1854), pp. 46-62, (see p. 373). 



