DELVING INTO A PREHISTORIC RECORD 
out by the etching process are embedded. The film is 
then pulled off, and brings with it the organic remains 
of the plant structure just as they were in the petrefact 
itself. The film can be mounted on a glass plate and 
examined under the microscope, just as is the ground 
section, and with much less time and work. 
When all the material has been organized and classified 
as accurately as possible, it has to be labeled and recorded. 
Then it is ready for description and interpretation in a 
book. In these interpretations of his laboratory, the 
paleobotanist tries to reconstruct the entire plant and its 
life history from embryo or seed to the adult age. He 
seeks to fit these forms into the evolutionary system of 
plants as far as it is known, and into the floras of the 
periods in which they grew. 
It is a long road from the newly discovered fossils to 
the printed page, but every step of it has to be covered 
before the job is finished. The work is not complete until 
the printed monograph or book with its precious additions 
to the world’s knowledge of the plants of other ages lies 
on the library shelf, where it will be ready for use in the 
interpretation and classification of still other fossils. 
27 
