b EEMARKS ON THE VEGETABLE REMAINS 



from that presented by the vascular cryptogamic plants, such as the Equi- 

 setacese, Lycopodiacese, and Filices. 



Many fossil vegetables having lately been found, particularly in the 

 mountain-limestone series and coal-fields, belonging either to the Coniferas, 

 or to a family closely allied to them, I am induced to believe that those 

 geologists who maintain that the vascular cryptogamic plants " almost en- 

 tirely composed the flora of that first period," labour under a misapprehen- 

 sion, entirely owing to the want of means, at the time when they formed 

 such a conclusion, of examining the numerous stems containing remains of 

 original structure, which lay buried in the early sedimentary deposits. 



I willingly admit that at that period there existed Equisetaceae ten feet 

 high, monocotyledonous plants and tree-ferns from fifty to sixty feet high, 

 and arborescent Lycopodiaceae from sixty to seventy feet high ; but I must 

 contend that there also existed coniferous trees, or such as contained a 

 complicated woody structure, in great abundance, and many of them of a 

 height equal to the loftiest of those just mentioned. 



That the preponderance of vascular cryptogamic plants was consider- 

 able, I do not wish to question. Many of the shale strata accompanying 

 the combustible beds of the coal-fields, contain innumerable impressions of 

 Filices, Equisetaceae, and Lycopodiaceae ; but that the beds, particularly at 

 the bottom of the coal-fields, also contain numberless specimens of gymno- 

 spermous phanerogamic plants, or of trees analogous to them, is now esta- 

 blished beyond dispute. From the frequent occurrence, therefore, of trees 

 possessing an exogenous structure, I cannot help suspecting the correctness 

 of the assertion, that " the class which almost of itself composed the flora 

 of this period, is that of the vascular cryptogamic plants, and in fact, that of 

 260 species discovered in this formation, 220 belong to that class." 



In a space not exceeding two hundred yards in length, in the quarry of 

 Craigleith near Edinburgh, have been found immense vegetable fossils be- 

 tween forty and fifty feet long, with a diameter of at least five feet in their 

 lower parts, besides several fragments of trees of similar structure, which, if 

 not Coniferae, are decidedly as perfect in structure, as will at once be 

 perceived on inspecting the representations of their transverse and Ion- 



