IV INTRODUCTION. 



fruit are indeed found in the fossil state ; but they are entirely insulated from the 

 other organs. 



Are leaves found, then it is almost certain that scarcely any fragment of the 

 stem is preserved attached to them. If the external parts of a stem are found, 

 they are more frequently bare and devoid of leaves. Can traces of the internal 

 organization be discovered, then the external character of the stem is rarely to 

 be traced. 



In consequence of this great deficiency of the characters on which the determi- 

 nations of the botanist are founded, there exists a necessity for going further than 

 has yet been done into the structure of recent plants; their habits of growth, the 

 cicatrices left in the stem by the leaves that fall off spontaneously, the different 

 appearances which their fruits exhibit in the progress of their growth, must be 

 minutely studied before any certainty can be obtained respecting the identity of 

 the fossil and recent plants. 



The exposition of the difficulties attending the study ought not to deter the 

 student; but lather excite his diligence in order to overcome them. Being fully 

 convinced of the importance of this study, in affording the materials on which 

 the Geologist may found his theoretical speculations, the author began some years 

 ago, to collect, examine, and delineate all the fossil plants that came into his 

 hands, and to examine with care the quarries and coal-pits in the neighbourhoods, 

 to which those fossils are peculiar. 



In the course of this inquiry, the author has been greatly assisted by the works 

 which have been published by the French and German naturalists; and he cannot 

 but regret the depressed state of English literature in this respect, the progress of 

 this peculiar study appearing to have been impeded in this country by our un^ 

 fortunately insisting on a connexion between two such independent branches of 

 knowledge as Philosophy and Religion. 



The rigour with which this connexion is insisted upon in respect of Geological 

 Theories is the more remarkable ; because it is but as yesterday that the similar 

 difficulty arising from the Scriptural account of the motion of the sun round the 

 earth was abandoned ; the philosophical theory of the motion of the earth round 

 the sun, as stated by Copernicus substituted ; and the scheme of Tycho Brahe to 

 reconcile Philosophy and Scripture by taking a middle course, unnoticed even in 

 the schools of the clergy. May it not be hoped that in a liberal and scientific 

 age, a free scope at least will be given to philosophical enterprize ; and that 



