vii 



Royal Society, and was also appointed Inspector- General for Science 

 of the University of Paris. 



With regard to his scientific character, Brongniart has been charac- 

 terized as the Linnaeus of fossil botany; not so mnch a great discoverer 

 as a great systematizer ; introducing lucid order and general principles 

 into the study of the materials which had been already collected. To 

 those materials, also, he undoubtedly added much by his own observa- 

 tions, and probably (as in the case of Linnaeus) his example gave a 

 stimulus to the exertions of his opponents as well as of his followers. 

 He was eminent, not only for industry, accuracy, and judgment, but 

 also for the clearness and neatness of his scientific writings. 



Brongniart's favourite branch of study is one in which exceed- 

 ingly rapid progress has been made, since he was at the height of his 

 fame, and in which rapid progress is still making. The researches of 

 Heer, linger, Ettingshausen, and others, in the fossil plants of the 

 Tertiaries, have opened to us almost entirely new departments of 

 Palaeo-botany ; the microscopic studies, which have been followed up 

 with so much zeal and success by some in our own country, have 

 thrown a greater amount of new light on the structure of the Palaeo- 

 zoic vegetation. But the name of Adolphe Brongniart deserves to be 

 held in honour as long as the sciences of botany and geology are 

 cultivated ; and, however far the knowledge of these subjects may be 

 carried, such works as his treatise on the structure of Sig Maria must 

 always be valued as models of accurate examination, lucid exposition, 

 and caution in drawing conclusions. 



Adolphe Brongniart's careful investigation and illustration of the 

 veining of recent ferns (see his " Histoire des Vegetaux Fossiles," 

 vol. i, p. 148) probably suggested some of the more recent methods 

 of arranging that family of plants. 



As a teacher he was remarkable for courtesy and kindness, and 

 readiness to help students in that branch of science to which he had 

 devoted himself. 



Elias Magnus Fries was born at the parsonage of Femsjo, in 

 Smaland, in the southern part of Sweden, on the 15th August, 1794. 

 He appears to have inherited from his father a love of natural history, 

 and his parents carefully fostered and encouraged this taste, in hopes 

 of thereby supplying to him the place of companions and playmates. 

 At the age of twelve he was already familiar with many of the plants 

 of the neighbourhood. In one of his rambles, in 1806, his attention 

 was attracted by the large and peculiar Hijdnum coralloides, and it 

 was this discovery, he said in after years, which awakened in him a 

 desire to study the Fungi. The very next day he set to work and 

 learnt the few genera then known from Liljeblad's Swedish Flora. In 

 the year 1808, when Sweden was ravaged by war and disease, it 



