WAED.l BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 369 



work, or the amount of painstaking labor devoted to the science, we find 

 that much more than half of all we possess of permanent value in pa- 

 leobotany has emanated from the brains, the hands, and the pens of 

 these eight lifelong and laborious devotees of their chosen science. 



It thus appears that the history of paleobotany must consist largely 

 in au account of the labors of a few persons, and had we nothing more 

 to offer than such an account, a fairly just conception of its origin, prog- 

 ress, nature, and scope might be thus afforded. But it might be justly 

 objected that so limited an enumeration not only leaves out of the ac- 

 count some of the most important works and most fertile workers, but 

 also fails to give the true relative importance to those earliest pioneers, 

 who, though they cannot be classed as the true founders of the science, 

 nevertheless first pointed out, and then actually broke, the way to fu- 

 ture research and discovery. Let us then extend our list to cover these 

 two important classes, and we still find that though much longer than 

 before it is not so long as to be burdensome. By nearly trebling our 

 former number the selections may be so made that, while not denying 

 great eminence and merit to many others, the history of discovery in 

 vegetable paleontology may be fairly represented by the labors of about 

 twenty -two men. A bare enumeration of these names in the order in 

 which they commenced to write would at least embrace the following: 



1. JoLann Jacob Sclieuchzer 1709 



2. Ernst Friederich, Baron yon Schlotheim 1801 



3. Kaspair Maria, Graf von Sternberg 1804 



4. Adolphe Theodore Brongniart 1822 



5. Henry T. M. Witham 1829 



6. Heinrioh Robert Goppert 1834 



7. August Joseph Corda 1838 



8. Hans Bruno Geinitz 1839 



9. Edward William Binney 1839 



10. Franz Unger 1840 



11. Wilhelm Philip Schimper 1840 



12. William Crawford Williamson 1842 



13. Leo Lesquereux 1845 



14. Sir John William Dawson 1345 



15. Oswald Heer 1846 



16. Sir Charles James Pox Bunbury 1846 



17. Abramo Massalongo 1850 



18. Constantin, Freiherr von Ettingshausen 1850 



19. John Strong Newberry 1S53 



20. August Sohenk 1 1858 



21. Marquis Gaston de Saporta 1860 



22. William Carruthers 1865 



From this list are omitted the names of a considerable number of the 

 younger active workers iu this field whose thorough and successful work 

 has already placed them in the front rank, but whose career is so far 

 from completed that its proper characterization will belong to the future 

 historian of the science. 

 GEOL 84 24 



