PROF. GOEPPERT P. OTANIcf GARDEN AT BRESLAU. 121 



trunk, which is quite unique, especially as regards its internal 

 cavity, there is a very ornamental plantation of our garden ferns, 

 and of those which nourish in the open air in the northern climes 

 of the two hemispheres. In its neighbourhood are two similar 

 trunks 8 feet high, and 2 feet thick, which were found in the same 

 locality : they are still provided with numerous branches, and are 

 of the same anatomical structure ; indeed they may be regarded 

 as branches of the above-mentioned gigantic tree. There are two 

 other trunks close to these, 6 feet high and flattened, belonging 

 to Cupressinoooylon ponderosum, Goepp. All are bound with iron 

 rings. 



By their side, we have, on pedestals, a trunk petrified with iron 

 pyrites, another with chalcedony, besides lumps of lignite. The 

 whole gronp gives a notion of the different modes of existence, 

 and of the different degrees of preservation, of the vegetables which 

 enter into the composition of the brown-coal formation. As the 

 principal trunk contains no sulphate of iron, its preservation, in 

 spite of climatic action, appears so much the more certain, inas- 

 much as nine winters, some of which were very sharp, and as 

 many rainy summers have not injured it in any respect. 



The ancient coal epoch, so important to Silesia in consequence 

 of the richness of its coalfields, is represented with equal care in 

 the garden. Eor this purpose a section of the whole formation 

 has been made in porphyry raised on granite. The porphyritic 

 c z 3 traversed by two beds of coal from 1 to 1^ foot thick, in- 

 cluding, in their natural state, the plants of which coal is com- 

 posed, as Coniferse, Sigillariae, Lepidodendra, the specimens of 

 which are finer than in any palseontological museum. The length 

 of this section, represented by a solid wall disposed in the form 

 of terraces, consisting of 22,100 pieces of stone, is from 9 to 12 feet 

 by 60 ; the height of the cone of porphyry, from the centre of the 

 base is 25 feet. The surface of the whole of this representation of 

 the ancient coalfield — planted with Abietinese, Cypresses, Ferns, 

 Equisetes, mixed with great trunks of the fossil plants, 10 feet 

 high — is from 19 to 20 ares (2272-2392 square yards, about half an 

 acre). The weight of the stones amounts to 4000 quintals. 



Special Arrangements. 



Such are the arrangements for theoretic instruction j it remains 

 to describe those which relate to medicine and pharmacy. 



It was important to collect, not only the plants actually con- 

 tained inEuropean pharmacopoeias; but others which are interesting 



