Fossil Botany. 



25 



species of the size of a pipe-stem, is known by the name of 

 Scouring Rush, and from the quantity of silicious matter in its 

 outer covering, is sometimes made serviceable in polishing 

 metal. To this family belongs the Catamites, which is now 

 only found in a fossil state, and which attained the magnitude 

 of a forest tree. Specimens of the same species occur in the 

 coal formations at Newcastle in England, at Lubec near 

 Canada, in France, and in Siberia, showing the wide extent to 

 which this plant was spread, at a time when heat and mois- 

 ture seem to have pervaded the whole earth, and to have given 

 to this family* like the Ferns, a gigantic size, while in this 

 climate no recent species become more than three or four feet 

 high, with diameters seldom attaining an inch. The following 

 figure represents a part of the stem of a fossil species, called 

 Calamites approximates, on account of the proximity of the 

 joints. 



In the next number, we propose to continue the subject of 

 Fossil Botany, and to explain the means of distinguishing and 

 classifying the different species of plants found in the strata of 

 the earth, illustrating our descriptions with cuts, and attempt- 

 ing to render the subject both useful and entertaining, to all 

 readers of sufficient capacity to understand explanations which 

 we intend to make at once clear and precise. 



