morris’s catalogue. 
185 
There are about eighty thousand species 
of existing plants discovered throughout 
the world. The fossil species form there¬ 
fore only one forty-fifth of the present^ and 
after making the largest allowance for the 
numbers which may yet remain undisturbed 
in their catacombs, yet the disparity remains 
very great; adding to the differences al¬ 
ready established between the existing and 
the former state of things on the surface of 
the globe. 
We are able to give a more complete 
view of the fossil botany of Britain than 
of any other country. The following 
table is compiled from Mr. Morris’s careful 
and elaborate '"Catalogue of British Fos¬ 
sils,” by the kind permission of the author 
of that work. It has been re-arranged in 
the order of the strata, the genera being 
distributed alphabetically. There are some 
species of subsequent discovery noticed in 
the proceedings of the Geological Society, 
but the latter are not so numerous as to af¬ 
fect any conclusions which may be drawn 
from the present list. 
