2 INTRODUCTION. 



tion, of recent vegetables, has elicited much knowledge respecting the na- 

 ture of the former, little has been effected by an application to their in- 

 ternal composition, in which decided and characteristic differences are never- 

 theless to be found. 



It is by the recently discovered method of cutting and polishing the 

 stems of fossil plants, that we are enabled to obtain an insight into their 

 structure. I had the pleasure, some years ago, of recommending this 

 method to the York and Newcastle Philosophical and Natural History 

 Societies. It was afterwards fully described in my Observations on Fossil 

 Vegetables ; and, in the present work, a detailed account of it will be found 

 in the Appendix. 



From the numerous discoveries which have thrown such a volume of 

 new light on the different departments of physical science ; from the uni- 

 versal desire of extending our knowledge to a degree of refinement hitherto 

 unattained ; from the wide-spread conviction that much may be done in 

 many a yet untrodden waste, I feel . confident that the numerous members 

 of the different classes of plants, which beautified the first and succeeding 

 surfaces of our sedimentary deposits, will now obtain that share of atten- 

 tion to which they are so fully entitled. 



The conflicting opinions which have been so long entertained by the 

 most learned men, who have directed their attention to this peculiar depart- 

 ment, and the many discoveries which have recently been made in the deep 

 and dark depositories of fossil vegetation, proving the existence of tribes of 

 plants before conceived to have been called into existence only at a much 

 more recent period, demand our particular attention. Deeply impressed 

 with this idea, I feel most anxious to convince those who are desirous of 

 cultivating this difficult and much neglected department of science, of the 

 necessity of minute examinations, and repeated comparisons, of the internal 

 structure of fossil stems. In some they will find it retaining all its ori- 

 ginal beauty ; while in others, owing to the different states of decomposi- 

 tion, they will perceive numerous and violent distortions. In many stems 

 they will perceive a mere remnant of structure, the other parts being filled up 

 by extraneous matter, often, however, arranged so beautifully and so symme- 



