376 SKETCH OF PALEOBOTANY. 



izer and text-book writer was again seen in his able contribution to 

 Zittel'8 "Handbuch der Palaontologie." 



Wilhelm Philip Schimper was born at Dosenheim (Alsace) in 1808, 

 and died at Strasbourg, where most of his work had been done, in 1880. 

 He became director of the Museum of National History of Strasbourg 

 in 1839. 



12. Williamson. — In Mr. W. 0. Williamson we have a third of the 

 line of eminent British paleobotanists, whose chief attention has been 

 directed to the study of the internal structure of Carboniferous plants, 

 and the one who at the present time unquestionably stands at the head 

 of this school of investigators. If we include his paper " On the Origin 

 of Coal," published in the report of the British Association for 1842 

 (Part 11, pp. 48, 49), his place would be where we have assigned him, 

 but his special work upon the plants themselves seems not to have 

 commenced until 1851, and then to have been more or less interrupted 

 until 1868, since which time it has been Incessant, culminating in his 

 great work "On the Organization of the Fossil Plants of the Coal 

 Measures," which runs through so many volumes of tlie "Philosophical 

 Transactions." Of the merits of this work, as of all of this author's 

 investigations, it is certainly unnecessary to speak here. 



13. Lesquereux. — Mr. Leo Lesquereux of Columbus, Ohio, is oneof those 

 acquisitions which America has so often made at Europe's expense when 

 political turmoils arise there and make liberty dearer even than country. 

 He was of that little band, which also inchided Agassiz and Guj-ot, who 

 Were compelled to abandon Switzerland in 1847 and 1848, on the occasion 

 of the breaking up of the Academy of NeuchStel and the coming into 

 power of the so-called Liberal party. His ancient family name was Les- 

 cure, afterwards Lescurieux, and finally Lesquereux, and his immediate 

 ancestors were French Huguenots. He was born November 18, 1806, at 

 Fleurier, canton of Neuchatel. His father was a manufacturer of watch 

 springs and endeavored to teach him that business, though, since bis 

 health was somewhat delicate, his mother preferred to prepare him for 

 the ministry ; but Science had marked him for her own, and no power 

 could withdraw him from nature. With a taste for plants in general, 

 he was led by circumstances first to the study of mosses, then naturally 

 to that of peat, and lastly to that of fossil plants. The government of 

 Neucbatel was then greatly interested in the protection of peat bogs on 

 account of the diflSculty of procuring fuel for the poor, and offered a 

 prize (a gold medal of 20 ducats) for the best memoir on the formation 

 and preservation of peat! Lesquereux competed and won the prize. 

 His prize memoir ^^ gained a wide reputation, was extensively copied, 

 and is still quoted as one of the best on the subject. 



'i'Quelques recherches sur les marais tourbeux en giSndral. M6moiies de la Soci^t6 

 de8 sciences naturellea de Neuch^tel, Tome III, 1845. (See summary in the Archives 

 des sciences phys. et nat. de Genfeve, Tome VI, p. 154.) 



