56 Br Martins on Antediluman Plants. 
in decomposing the air, and in deriving nourishment rather from 
the elements of the atmosphere than of the earth, they seem pre- 
eminently adapted for exciting the rude and inert power of the 
earth to produce more perfect tribes of vegetables. I do not, 
however, mean to assert from this, that those primitive forests 
consisted chiefly of ferns : for the woods of the equinoctial re- 
gions, which are pre-eminently rich in ferns, consist of trees 
much more robust than the ferns, which occupy only a second- 
ary rank in them. In like manner, we learn from a comparison 
of the various specimens of plants dug up, that, in the ante- 
diluvian woods, the fern stems were interspersed with much lar- 
ger trees, and, on the general destruction of the forests, have 
^ been converted, together with various kinds of herbaceous plants, 
Into coal, now constituting thinner strata among the carbonaceous 
remains of other trees. Thus it is ascertained that many plants, 
described by authors under the name of Poacites, belong to the 
genus Sclerla ; others, to other genera of Graminese and Scita- 
mineae, occurring in the woods of tropical countries. 
The determination of these different kinds of carbonised trees 
has been a subject of much investigation among the learned, 
many referring all the vegetables of the primeval periods to the 
monocotyledonous series; while a few, on the other hand, have 
observed the remains of dicotyledonous plants among coal. 
{To be conchided in our iiccet.) 
Art. V. — Short Account of the Forest Trees and Timber 
Trade of the Interior of Russia. By William Howison, 
M. D. Lecturer on Materia Medica, and Theory and Prac- 
tice of Medicine, Edinburgh 
1 HE most common species of wood, in the immense tracts of 
forest extending over the northern parts of the llussian empire, 
consist, for the most part, of the Pine tribe. In some parts ol 
the country the pine-trees grow to a great height and size. The 
species denominated in this country the Scotch Fir {Pinus syU 
vestris)., is by far the most abundant ; and as it retains its luxu- 
riant foliage during the long winter, it affords shelter to man, 
* These observations were made by Dr Ilowison during his residence in Rus- ^ 
Edit. 
