224 



Baron Ettingshausen. 



[Dec. 19, 



and that the number of the species is reduced all the more rapidly 

 the more remote the Flora is from that of the present world. But of 

 this more later on. 



The method of investigating fossil plants must, above all things, be 

 directed to their exact classification, and consequently to a knowledge 

 of the facts on which the history of the development of the vegetable 

 kingdom is supported. This however is only made possible by most 

 carefully comparing fossil plants with living ones. Unfortunately, in 

 this respect, so many faults and mistakes have been committed, that 

 the greater part of the determinations as yet arrived at require 

 revision and correction. Hitherto the fossils have not been compared 

 accurately enough with the recent vegetable world. It may be frankly 

 said, that most phyto-palasontologists possess too little botanical 

 knowledge ; how can it be expected of a novice in botany, that he 

 should classify fossil plants correctly, if he do not thoroughly know 

 the living ones ? 



The most frequent difficulties arise in classifying the fossil leaves 

 which form by far the greatest number of fossil plant remains. The 

 leaf skeleton which offers the most important marks for their classifi- 

 cation must first be studied with this object, for the systematic 

 botanists have barely regarded this matter at all. I may indeed point 

 out, as a very fortunate circumstance, that exactly at the time I was 

 much occupied with this work, Nature Printing was invented in the 

 State Printing Office, at Vienna (1852), an operation by which the 

 leaves of living plants with all the details of their finest veins were 

 printed off in the most accurate manner. 



I was permitted to publish a series of works on the leaf- skeleton 

 together with illustrations in nature printing with the object of com- 

 paring them with fossil plants. The marks on the leaf-skeleton were 

 examined and arranged, and at present all the families of living plants 

 which are of importance in relation to the fossil Flora have been 

 already brought into scientific order according to their leaf- skeletons. 



III. — Object and Plan of the Investigation of Fossil Plants. 



Fossil plants are often examined only for palasontological or 

 geological purposes, but in the opinion of the author it is also 

 necessary to consider the interests of botany. We must in this 

 always take our departure from the known to discover the un- 

 known. We proceed, therefore, from the Flora of the present world, 

 step by step, to the primaeval, and thus have first to investigate the 

 Cainozoic Flora. Only when these have been fully examined and 

 their connexion with the living Flora completely ascertained, can the 

 Mezozoic Flora be so worked out that the genetic connexion of the 

 Cainozoic Flora with the latter will be determined. The final object 

 of these labours will be the investigation of the Palaeozoic Flora, 



