8 REMARKS ON THE VEGETABLE REMAINS 



are composed of vascular cryptogamic plants, rests upon the numerous im- 

 pressions of the scattered remains of the leaves and stems of that class, 

 why should the many magnificent members of the phanerogamic class be 

 allowed to lie speechless in their early graves, instead of proclaiming the 

 antiquity of their origin, and the usefulness of their order ? 



It may perhaps be objected, that until lately these phanerogamic plants 

 have never been noticed or discovered in any quantity so low in the series. 

 This I admit, but owing to the recent introduction of the method of slicing 

 these opaque bodies, and reducing them to sufficient thinness, we are now 

 enabled to examine their structure as satisfactorily as we could examine 

 that of a recent tree. Before the introduction of this method, owing to the 

 darkness in which they were enveloped, they lay unobserved and neglected; 

 and when one was accidentally discovered, we were unable to assign it a 

 name or a class. 



The very effective aid afforded by the microscope in the examination of 

 these fossil stems, has induced me to spend much time in searching for 

 varieties of them in the older deposits ; and the success which has attended 

 my efforts in so small a portion of so large a field, and in so short a period, 

 inclines me to believe, that by the united exertions of Foreign and British 

 botanists, the number of gymnospermous phanerogamic plants in these 

 early formations, will ultimately be found greatly to exceed what those 

 who have hitherto written on the subject could in the then existing cir- 

 cumstances expect. 



Now, with regard to the number and variety of vascular cryptogamic 

 plants, I cannot help admitting that in many beds of the Newcastle, Dur- 

 ham, and Yorkshire coal-fields, and I doubt not in many others, that the 

 seams are accompanied with various impressions of cryptogamic plants ; yet 

 in the Edinburgh or Lothian basins, there are thirty-three beds or seams 

 of coal, and there the impressions of ferns are so rare as to be reckoned 

 curiosities. The same may be said of the other coal-basins in Scotland. 

 Although the leaves and branches of these vasculo-cellular plants, in the 

 above named English coal fields, are found scattered about in irregular 

 profusion ; yet from the beautiful manner in which they are preserved, we 



