Antediluvian phytology, illustrated by a collection of the fossil remains of plants, peculiar to the coal formations of Great Britain / By Edmund Tyrell Artis.

  • Artis, Edmund Tyrell, 1789-1847.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antediluvian phytology, illustrated by a collection of the fossil remains of plants, peculiar to the coal formations of Great Britain / By Edmund Tyrell Artis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Professor Martius, and ]\I. Adolphe Brongniart will shew the progress of the knowledge that has been obtained of these plants. The Baron Schlotheim, who published in 1804, the first part of a Flora der \ orwelt, followed up his researches of this kind by a catalogue of his cabinet, under the title of Die Petrefactenkunde auf ihrern jetzigen Standpunkte erlautert, published in 1820, to which two Appendixes have since been added in 1822 and 1823. The arrangement made by the Baron, so far as regards the vegetable part of his cabinet is as follows : His specimens are first divided into five sections; or perhaps their more proper names would be orders. 1. Dendrolithes, containing the remains of trees, which are subdivided into three subsections. A. LUhoxylites, of which no characters are given, but from the specimens mentioned by him, he evidently arranges in this place the wood stone and wood opal of the mineralogists. B. Litliantracites. In which the Baron places the bituminized stems and other parts of trees. C. BihlioUthes. Fossil leaves, mostly of the later formations. 2. Botanolitues. Comprising those kinds of fossil plants which cannot be considered either as trees or shrubs, nor belonging to the plants of the old coal formation. mat than the skeletons which have been found in the alluvial soils that have been formed since that catas- trophe, in which they are even discovered very frequently in an upright position ; yet it is easy to con- ceive that from its bulk and weight, it might have met with frequent accidents, in crossing lakes on the ice, or being mired in soft grounds. And an animal, whicli at all times was probably scarce, and very con- spicuous as an object of the chase, would speedily be destroyed even by a thinly scattered population of hunter tribes. The existence of the wolf in these islands is a matter of historical record ; and that of the beaver rests partly on tradition, partly on the fact of there being a name appropriated to this species of animal in two of the languages of the country, namely the Cymric or Welch, and the Gaelic or Highland Scotch, which names are formed by derivation, and not adopted from other countries where these animals now exist. The wild boar certainly contributed to the sports and feasts of the Romans along with the stag. In the course of the extensive researches which the author has made in the Durobrivm, in making which he has caused numerous excavations to be made, and over a space of country nearly eight miles in circumference, he has been fortunate enough to raise the bones of various animals, particularly the tusks of the boar and the antlers of the stag. The various discoveries which these excavations have afforded the author in respect to antiquities, are now in course of description by a publication, in parts, under the title of Roman Antiquities, or the Durobriva; of .\ntonius identified in a series of plates, illustrative of the Excavated Remains of that Roman Station, in the Parish of Castor, Northamptonshire.