INTRODUCTION. 



The study of fossil plants has been very little cultivated in this country ; indeed 

 the progress made by us in this branch of Geology is far inferior to that by the 

 continental Geologists ; who, notwithstanding the paucity of their materials,, have 

 made considerable exertions, being aware of the great importance of the study of 

 fossil plants, for clearing away many difficulties in the theory of Geology. 



It cannot be said that our naturalists do not possess equal talent and perseve- 

 rance with them ; and it is certain that our quarries, our pits, our mines, and our 

 museums, exhibit such an immense mass of materials, that we can only attribute 

 the backward state of the study to the attention of our naturalists, not having 

 been hitherto so immediately directed to this object, as its importance requires. 

 Science, like every thing else, is subject to the dictates of fashion, even far 

 beyond what the ordinary observer of things would suppose; and although no 

 great leader of the scientific world has yet contributed to cause the study of these 

 plants to be generally adopted ; there is reason to hope that as they cannot 

 but attract the attention of the Geological Society recently incorporated by his 

 Majesty, so the study of them will not only assume its proper rank amongst the 

 other objects to which the attentions of the members of that Society are devoted ; 

 but their exertions will continue to spread the study generally amongst the other 

 members of the scientific world. 



The imperfect state in which fossil plants are found, in consequence of 

 the catastrophe of which they have been the victims is such, that the ordinary 

 characters by which recent plants are referred to their congeners can scarcely 

 ever, or indeed it might more justly be said, can never be detected in them. The 

 sexual organs on which the systems of Linnaeus, Jussieu, and all modern authors 

 are founded, and also the integuments of the organs just mentioned, while in the 

 state of flowering, have uniformly disappeared ; the external parts of the seed or 



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