VI INTRODUCTION. 



Professor Martius, and M. Adolphe Brongniart will shew the progress of the 

 knowledge that has been obtained of these plants. 



The Baron Schlotheim, who published in 1804, the first part of a Flora der 

 Vorwelt, followed up his researches of this kind by a catalogue of his cabinet, 

 under the title of Die Petrefactenkunde auf ihrem jetzigen Standpunkte erl'autert, 

 published in 1820, to which two Appendixes have since been added in 1822 and 1823. 



The arrangement made by the Baron, so far as regards the vegetable part of 

 his cabinet is as follows : 



His specimens are first divided into five sections ; or perhaps their more proper 

 names would be orders. 



1. Dendrolithes, containing the remains of trees, which are subdivided into 



three subsections. 



A. Lithoxylites, of which no characters are given, but from the specimens 

 mentioned by him, he evidently arranges in this place the wood stone and wood 

 opal of the mineralogists. 



B. Llthantracites. In which the Baron places the bituminized stems and 

 other parts of trees. 



C. Bibliolithes. Fossil leaves, mostly of the later formations. 



2. Botanolithes. Comprising those kinds of fossil plants which cannot be 

 considered either as trees or shrubs, nor belonging to the plants of the old coal 

 formation. 



mal than the skeletons which have been found in the alluvial soils that have been formed since that catas- 

 trophe, in which they are even discovered very frequently in an upright position ; yet it is easy to con- 

 ceive that from its bulk and weight, it might have met with frequent accidents, in crossing lakes on the ice, 

 or being mired in soft grounds. And an animal, which at all times was probably scarce, and very con- 

 spicuous as an object of the chase, would speedily be destroyed even by a thinly scattered population of 

 hunter tribes. 



The existence of the wolf in these islands is a matter of historical record ; and that of the beaver rests 

 partly on tradition, partly on the fact of there being a name appropriated to this species of animal in two 

 of the languages of the country, namely the Cymric or Welch, and the Gaelic or Highland Scotch, which 

 names are formed by derivation, and not adopted from other countries where these animals now exist. 



The wild boar certainly contributed to the sports and feasts of the Romans along with the stag. In the 

 course of the extensive researches which the author has made in the Durobrivas, in making which he has 

 caused numerous excavations to be made, and over a space of country nearly eight miles in circumference, 

 he has been fortunate enough to raise the bones of various animals, particularly the tusks of the boar and 

 the antlers of the stag. 



The various discoveries which these excavations have afforded the author in respect to antiquities, are 

 now in course of description by a publication, in parts, under the title of Roman Antiquities, or the 

 Durobrivae of Antonius identified in a series of plates, illustrative of the Excavated Remains of that Roman 

 Station, in the Parish of Castor, Northamptonshire. 



