22 * PINACE.^:. 



prototypes which are so wonderfully formed, and so apparently unreal, 

 that it might be questioned whether they should be classed as organic 

 or inorganic matter ; for amongst Conchal or Molluscous masses 

 we have veritable organisms, in posse it may be, yet nevertheless in 

 esse, jelly, or — if you like it — cream, pure and simple; and as it were 

 minus parts, structure, or organs ; yet eventually evolving the most 

 beautiful, wonderful, and mysteriously complex forms of shells ; but 

 I desire to confine myself to as warranted though equally as speculative 

 a subject — the antiquity and origin of Nature's vegetable organisms — 

 more particularly of the Firs and Pines. 



After acquiring a practical knowledge of phytology, and taking some 

 practical lessons in the school of geology, we can receive instruction, 

 inferential it may be, yet none the less true, that at different epochs of 

 the world's history there have been produced, and deposited in mother 

 earth, the fabrics and products of many floras and arboras, and equally 

 numerous in cognate genera and specific prototypes, though much 

 less numerous in varieties than are extant at the present time. Geo- 

 graphically and climatically considered, these genera and species are 

 more or less changed from those now growing upon the same portions 

 of our planet ; but this only exhibits to us one of iSlature's Xc^ic, — 

 CHANGE ; for the more recent discoveries of fossilized woods all tend to 

 confirm the theory that cognate genera and specific prototypes are at 

 present no more numerous than they were — '^in the beginning," 

 however much they may have multiplied and replenished the earth" 

 with their quasi-species, varieties, and sub-varieties ; for even what in 

 modern times have been discovered, classed and described as new 

 genera — the existence of these, if known, had not been recorded, 

 neither in ancient nor mediaeval history ; yet these supposed-to-be new 

 genera can now be referred to their veritable prototypes in the different 

 geological stratas ; and, more remarkable still, some of these gigantic 

 firs and pines, which have recently been discovered in north-western 

 regions, the very Anakims of the vegetable kingdom, are now being 

 excavated from the inner crusts of mother earth as fossilized wood ; 

 yes 1 the veritable lignine of the said-to-be new tree, Gigantahies, 

 Sequoia " — of most authors, (Tlie Giant or Mammoth Fir,) has been but 

 recently found in the fossil beds of tlie Britiiih Isles. We are now able to 

 classify these vegetable fossils into four or five distinct and successive 

 floras analogous to the kindred faunas ; and how gigantic and profuse 

 the ferns, lycopods and foliar products of the coal-formations ! how 

 much more carbonaceous their food, how much hotter their habitat ! 



