INTRODUCTION. 3 
Deeply impressed with this idea, I feel most anxious to convince those 
who are desirous of forwarding this difficult and much neglected department 
of botanical geology, of the necessity of minute examinations, and repeated 
comparisons of the different sections of plants belonging to both classes. 
In some, they will find the vegetable structure of these stems retaining all. 
its original beauty; while in others, owing to the different states of de- 
composition, they will perceive numerous and violent distortions. In many 
of the stems, they will find but a mere remnant of structure, the other parts 
being filled up generally by percolation with foreign matter, often arranged 
so beautifully and symmetrically, as at first sight to induce a belief that the 
original vegetable structure remains unimpaired. In such cases, the ob- 
server will require to repeat his observations, and extend his comparisons, 
before he can arrive at any safe or satisfactory conclusion. 
When he has become acquainted with a few general arrangements, by 
which nature has characterized the groups into which she has thrown her 
productions, the observer finds that the cloud which before darkened his 
understanding is gradually dispelled. But this result can be obtained only 
by the most minute and often repeated microscopic observations and com- 
parisons, not only of fossil plants with each other, but of fossil and recent 
species together. 
My principal object in presenting this work to the public, is to im- 
press upon geologists the advantage of attending more particularly to the in- 
timate organization of fossil plants; and should I succeed in exciting their 
attention to this hitherto neglected study, I should feel a degree of satisfac- 
tion which will amply repay my labour. The pleasure which I have de- 
rived from my investigations, will be heightened by the reflection, that I 
have communicated their results to my fellow labourers. At the same time, 
I may, without presumption, hope, that the representations which I here 
offer of the organic structure of fossil and recent vegetables, will tend to 
throw some light on the nature of plants hitherto seen in a very obscure 
manner. 
If the attention lately paid to the study of fossil conchology has been so 
highly instrumental in clearing up the many doubts respecting the different 
A 
