History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays (Geological Society Special Publication)

History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays

Geological Society Special Publications Society Book Editors R. J. PANKHURST (CHIEF EDITOR) P. DOYLE F. J. GREGORY J. S. GRIFFITHS A. J. HARTLEY R. E. HOLDSWORTH

J. A. HOWE P. T. LEAT A. C. MORTON N. S. ROBINS J. P. TURNER Special Publication reviewing procedures The Society makes every effort to ensure that the scientific and production quality of its books matches that of its journals. Since 1997, all book proposals have been refereed by specialist reviewers as well as by the Society's Books Editorial Committee. If the referees identify weaknesses in the proposal, these must be addressed before the proposal is accepted. Once the book is accepted, the Society has a team of Book Editors (listed above) who ensure that the volume editors follow strict guidelines on refereeing and quality control. We insist that individual papers can only be accepted after satisfactory review by two independent referees. The questions on the review forms are similar to those for Journal of the Geological Society. The referees' forms and comments must be available to the Society's Book Editors on request. Although many of the books result from meetings, the editors are expected to commission papers that were not presented at the meeting to ensure that the book provides a balanced coverage of the subject. Being accepted for presentation at the meeting does not guarantee inclusion in the book. Geological Society Special Publications are included in the ISI Index of Scientific Book Contents, but they do not have an impact factor, the latter being applicable only to journals. More information about submitting a proposal and producing a Special Publication can be found on the Society's web site: www.geolsoc.org.uk.

It is recommended that reference to all or part of this book should be made in one of the following ways: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History ofPalaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241. CLEAL, C.J., LAZARUS, M. & TOWNSEND, A. 2005. Illustrations and illustrators during the 'Golden Age' of palaeobotany: 1800-1840. In: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,41-61.

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY SPECIAL PUBLICATION NO. 241

History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays

EDITED BY

A.J. BOWDEN National Museums Liverpool, UK

C.V. BUREK University College, Chester, UK and

R. WILDING History of Geology Group, UK

2005 Published by The Geological Society London

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

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Contents BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. History of Palaeobotany: an Introduction The beginnings WILDING, R. From the rise of the Enlightenment to the beginnings of Romanticism (Robert Plot, Edward Lhwyd and Richard Brookes, MD) TORRENS, H.S. The Moravian minister Rev. Henry Steinhauer (1782-1818); his work on fossil plants, their first 'scientific' description and the planned Mineral Botany The early 19th century CHALONER, W.G. & PEARSON, H.L. John Lindley: the reluctant palaeobotanist CLEAL, C.J., LAZARUS, M. & TOWNSEND, A. Illustrations and illustrators during the 'Golden Age' of palaeobotany: 1800-1840 The later 19th century and into the 20th century ANDERSON, L.L Hugh Miller: introducing palaeobotany to a wider audience PEARSON, H.L. Baron Achille de Zigno: an Italian palaeobotanist of the 19th century THOMAS, B.A. The palaeobotanical beginnings of geological conservation: with case studies from the USA, Canada and Great Britain SIMKISS, W. & BOWDEN, A.J. Palaeobotanical studies and collecting in the 19th century, with particular reference to the Ravenhead collection and Henry Hugh Higgins CHALONER, W.G. The palaeobotanical work of Marie Stopes HOWELL, A.C. James Lomax (1857-1934): palaeobotanical catalyst or hindrance? WILDING, R. D.H. Scott and A.C. Seward: modern pioneers in the structure and architecture of fossil plants MARSHALL, I.E.A. Arthur Raistrick: Britains's premier palynologist BUREK, C.V. & CLEAL, C.J. The life and work of Emily Dix (1904-1972) The fate of three university schools of palaeobotany/palynology LISTON, J.J. & SANDERS, H.L. The 'other' Glasgow Boys: the rise and fall of a school of palaeobotany WATSON, J. One hundred and fifty years of palaeobotany at Manchester University WELLMAN, C.H. Half a century of palynology at the University of Sheffield From other continents OTTONE, E.G. The history of palaeobotany in Argentina during the 19th century SUN, Q.-G. The rise of Chinese palaeobotany, emphasizing the global context Index

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5 13 29 41 63 85 95 111 127 137 153 161 181

197 229 259 281 293 299

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History of Palaeobotany: an Introduction A. J. BOWDEN1, C. V. BUREK2 & R. WILDING3 1

National Museums Liverpool, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) 2 University College, Chester, UK 3 History of Geology Group, UK

This volume concentrates on selected historic aspects of palaeobotany that are, perhaps, hard to find elsewhere. In writing historical accounts it is often of much greater value to provide fresh material concerning little known personages and events rather than re-invent the wheel by going over welltrodden paths more expertly tackled in other works. Therefore we have not endeavoured to include all those who have made substantial contributions to the science, so that there are inevitable gaps and omissions. Instead, we hope that the compilation presented in this volume will be of interest to those who wish to explore some of the byways of our palaeobotanical heritage. A full history of 'Palaeobotany' has yet to be written, but we hope that this volume may help to spur such future activity. The history of palaeobotany contains fascinating insights into scientific endeavour. In the past it has been too easily dismissed as the 'Cinderella' of palaeontological studies in which many of the early workers were pursuing personal interests rather than a full-time career. This publication falls into several broad sections with a couple of minor themes occurring throughout. The first two papers serve as an introduction into the early developments of selected aspects of palaeobotany. Wilding briefly examines the work and setting of Robert Plot and Edmund Lhwyd, who laid down foundations for what would eventually become the sciences of Palaeontology and Palaeobotany. Torrens looks at the life and work of the Moravian minister, Reverend Henry Steinhauer, who became a disciple of William Smith's stratigraphic methods. Steinhauer's tragic premature death from consumption in 1818 may have contributed to his subsequent obscurity. Early 19th century developments are covered by Chaloner & Pearson in their account of some of the work of John Lindley. Lindley was a pioneer in the true sense of the word, combining experimental technique with meticulous description. Together with William Hutton, John Lindley published the much-acclaimed Fossil Flora of Great Britain. Aspects of Lindley's pioneering work in palaeobotany remain topics of active research today. Cleal et al. examine the role of 'Illustrations and Illustrators' during the early 19th century. Their accounts of the works by Schlotheim, Sternberg and Brongniart demonstrate the importance of collaboration

between taxonomists, artists and illustrators in raising the awareness of the value of palaeobotanical material amongst the larger scientific community. The later 19th century and 20th century developments are covered by a number of papers that examine the lives of individuals and their contributions to the advance of palaeobotany. Anderson provides a preliminary assessment of Hugh Miller's contribution to the discipline. Miller travelled extensively throughout Scotland and these forays, plus his local knowledge, helped to uncover fresh sources of fossil plant material. Miller was a great communicator of science and religion who wrote extensively for the general public, and was thus instrumental in helping the public to appreciate the concept of deep time and the complexities of past, long-vanished worlds. Anderson explores the contribution made to the popular understanding of fossil plants by Miller in his published works, as well as presenting an appendix of the type and figured palaeobotanical material in the Hugh Miller collection, held in Edinburgh by the National Museums of Scotland. Pearson examines the work of the Italian palaeobotanist Baron Achille de Zigno who wrote extensively on the early Mesozoic floras from the Venetia region of Italy. This 19th century work has been of importance in the investigation of a rare Middle Liassic flora that has helped to elucidate the palaeobiogeography of the Tethys area in Lower Jurassic times. Thomas looks at the manner in which the discovery of spectacular plant fossils in the USA, Canada and Great Britain acted as a spur to early efforts in geoconservation. In a similar vein, Simkiss & Bowden look at the role that two amateur collectors played in the rescue collecting of fossil plant material from the Ravenhead site and its subsequent taxonomic status following Kidston's revisions. The loss of some of this material during the Liverpool Blitz in 1941 highlights an issue that raised its head during the production of the papers for this publication, namely the importance of conserving collections. This is shown as a very real problem with many key specimens being lost or inaccurately curated and only a few subsequently found (Torrens et al, 2000; Burek 2003). Without properly curated and conserved specimens how will the next generation of palaeobotanists fare? They will be without

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,1-4.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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the type specimens so vital to our understanding of biostratigraphy. We must look back in time and learn by our mistakes, especially in conservation. This is especially true of a field-based science like palaeobotany where key sites disappear at the drop of a hat. A recurrent theme has been the substantial contribution made by females to the advancement of palaeobotany. Originally botany was not considered of interest to women, whereas mathematics, astronomy and geology were. However, as the following quotes show, this changed in the 18th century, when botany was regarded as a suitable feminine science since 'plants are placid like females'. Rousseau agreed in 1762 that it 'required nothing but patience to begin' so let women pursue it (Schiebinger 1989). However, the first botany book actually aimed at women and written by a woman (Mrs Priscilla Wakefield) was not published until 1796. This book, 'An Introduction to Botany', reached its llth edition in 1841 (Phillips 1990), showing the popularity of the subject. By the end of the 19th century botany had replaced geology and entomology as a leading subject of interest for women, and palaeobotany emerged as the natural link between them. The late arrival of women into higher education in the UK during the 1880s meant that it was only during the 20th century that there appeared professionally recognized female palaeobotanists with a university education, such as Marie Stopes. The role of women and the significant impact they have had on the development of the discipline has often been understated and many of the problems they have faced both in the past and at present underplayed. Some of these are outlined in the papers on Emily Dix (Burek & deal), Marie Stopes (Chaloner) and the Manchester department (Watson). Howell examines the work of James Lomax and his business techniques. Lomax was an example of an amateur palaeobotanist who developed this interest commercially as a professional fossil and thin section preparator, founding the Lomax Palaeobotanical Company Limited in 1906. Wilding provides an introductory paper giving a brief overview of the life and work of Dukenfield Henry Scott and Sir Albert Charles Seward, forerunners in the great growth of palaeobotanical work in the 20th century. Marshall examines the life and work of Arthur Raistrick who undertook pioneering work on the pollen analysis of peat. He used the knowledge so gained to successfully correlate Carboniferous coal seams using quantitative spore profiles. Raistrick's work became widely adopted by many coal laboratories in the UK and overseas, forming the foundation for the modern development of the discipline. Another recurrent theme throughout the book is the rise and fall of various departments over time. The problems of maintaining research facilities in universities, especially in the modern era, reveal an

absence of a national UK strategy to preserve centres of excellence in an avowedly specialist area. This probably reflects the nature of science and changing fashions within university and museum administration/funding and fashion. The histories of three different UK university Schools of Palaeobotany are outlined. Liston & Sanders examine the development of the Glasgow 'School of Palaeobotany' centred on the university's Botany Department. Watson looks back over 150 years of palaeobotany at Manchester University, whilst Wellman reviews half a century of palynology at Sheffield University. Although this publication has a predominantly UK focus, two interesting studies outline the history of palaeobotanical work in Argentina and China. Ottone provides an overview of the development of palaeobotany in Argentina during the 19th century. Many of the early fossil plant records resulted from visits of 19th century naturalist explorers such as Azara, d'Orbigny, Darwin, de Moussy, Burmeister and Bonpland. This, in turn, led to primary geological investigations by German geologists. The early work on paleaobotany in Argentina was also primarily by European scientists. It took a while for a 'home grown' Argentinian School, of Palaeobotany to develop, flourishing under the guidance of Alberto Castellanos and his disciples during the 20th century. Qi-Gao Sun provides an account of the rise of Chinese palaeobotany and places it into a global context. Chinese records indicate that notification of fossil plants was recorded as early as 1068 during the Song dynasty by Shen Kuo, who probably made the first palaeoecological determination based on plant fossils. However, the real development of Chinese palaeobotany took place during the 20th century. The first half of the 20th century saw a primarily geological approach adapted to palaeobotanical studies that was applied to the needs of economic development, whilst a more biological approach was adopted from the 1940s onwards. This Special Publication of the Geological Society arose as a result of a joint meeting held at the Linnean Society in October 2000. The meeting was organized by the Linnean Society Palaeobotany Specialist Group (LSPSG) and the History of Geology Group of the Geological Society (HOGG). Thanks are due to Dr J.C. Marsden, Executive Secretary and Miss G. Douglas, Librarian and Archivist, and other members of staff of the Linnean Society, also to Dr I. Poole, University of Utrecht and of LSPBSpG, all of whom did much to help organize the conference on which much of this book is based. The task of the editorial team has been greatly eased by the willing assistance and expertise of the referees. The subdiscipline of Historical Palaeobotany is a small field in the UK, and this is perhaps reflected in the choice of referees who had the necessary expertise to comment usefully

HISTORY OF PALAEOBOTANY: AN INTRODUCTION on the papers sent for peer review. Much of the reviewing process has been internal to this volume for this very reason. To all contributors and referees we thank them for their patience and forbearance during the lengthy gestation period of this Special Publication. In particular we wish to thank Prof. W. Chaloner, Prof. B. Thomas and Dr C. Cleal for their guidance and generous assistance with our queries. Other referees were Dr R. Cleevely, Dr J. Edmondson, Dr J. Hilton, Prof. R. Howarth, A. Howell, Dr M. Kolbl-Ebert, J. Liston, Dr A. MacGregor, Dr J. Marshall, Dr C. Page, H. Pearson, Dr G. Tresise and Dr C. Wellman. To all referees we extend our grateful thanks for their time and patience.

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References BUREK, C.V. 2003. Time to take responsibility for collections. Earth Heritage, 20,22-23. PHILLIPS, P. 1990. The Scientific Lady. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. SCHIEBINGER, L. 1989. The Mind has no Sex. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. TORRENS, H., BENAMY, E., DAESCHLER, E.B., SPAMER, E.E. & BOGAN, A.E. 2000. Etheldred Benett of Wiltshire, England, the first lady geologist - Her fossil collection in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the rediscovery of 'lost' specimens of Jurassic Trigoniidae (Mollusca, Bivalvia) with their soft anatomy preserved. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 150, 59-123.

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From the rise of the Enlightenment to the beginnings of Romanticism (Robert Plot, Edward Lhwyd and Richard Brookes, MD) RICHARD WILDING History of Geology Group, Twickenham, Surrey TW2 7NL, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract: The 17th and 18th centuries were periods when all the sciences began to develop and men of science showed an interest in what began later to grow into significant ways of looking at the Earth, the composition of its crust and the life forms inhabiting it. The political, social, economic and religious events of those times acted as helping influences on the way that all knowledge grew and developed, but also provided some limitations on the ways that scientific knowledge was pursued. The 18th century became widely known as 'the Age of Enlightenment', as it marked the ending of ignorance and darkness, but there were developments in 17th century European culture and knowledge that foreshadowed this. This paper concentrates on the work of two men of 17th century science who assisted the rise of interest in those evidences of the past life on our planet that would later become the sciences of Palaeontology and Palaeobotany. Robert Plot and Edward Lhwyd were the first custodians of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and their work demonstrates that such institutions did much to advance our scientific knowledge. Although three of their contemporaries, Robert Hooke, Nicolaus Steno and John Woodward, firmly believed that fossils were of organic origin, both Plot and Lhwyd opposed these views and developed their own explanations, yet, nevertheless, produced some accurate descriptions of fossils from both animal and plant sources. Lhwyd, in particular, was very hardworking and successful in his early attempts at classification. Later in the 18th century, Richard Brookes, MD used much of their work in a highly successful compilation of current knowledge, a six-volume work on Natural History. In this he was assisted by one of the literary geniuses of his time, Oliver Goldsmith. This was an important advance in the popularization of Natural Science

To study the history of science - any science - the social, religious, political and economic history of the times being studied is always of great relevance to the student, as science never occurs in a vacuum of its own making, but always depends on contemporary events and ideas. As events have causes, and ideas develop from previous notions and philosophies, there is always the problem of where to begin. For example: the English Reformation resulted eventually in the English Civil War, which led to the Commonwealth and the Protectorate that, in turn, led to the Restoration of the Monarchy. Side by side with the political, social and religious developments of these events, science moved in unison. So, in theory, to get the complete picture, one could begin almost anywhere. But perhaps Francis Bacon would be a very good start.

Francis Bacon and Robert Hooke Francis Bacon (1561-1626), not so much a scientist as an early propagandist for science, saw and was involved in many of the events of the English Reformation, and also influenced later developments in science. He stressed the necessity of experimentation, an important prerequisite for, and part of, scientific observations. Bacon also pointed out

the importance of language in science. He was truly the father of the Royal Society, founded in 1662 after the Restoration, which ended that experimental period when puritanism was an essential part of government. Yet, it is a mistake to assume that the puritan interest in experimental science was nonexistent. We find that Cromwell's army chaplain, John Webster, earlier demanded that laboratories as well as libraries be provided in universities, 'and that they put their fingers in the oven, so that they get familiar with the wonders of chemistry' (Webster 1654; Hooykaas 1972, p. 94). The Royal Society, in its early days, gave that great deviser of useful scientific apparatus, Robert Hooke (1635-1703), the opportunity to use his great genius for constructing instruments and apparatus to assist scientific observation. Hooke's inventions were not only useful in his own times, but had their uses and developments for posterity. His inventions included an air pump, a watch controlled by a spring instead of a pendulum, the iris diaphragm for telescopes, a wind gauge, a sealed thermometer, a weather clock, a hygrometer, the wheel barometer, a universal joint and apparatus for depth-sounding. But, perhaps, his most useful invention for the life sciences was his compound microscope with a new technique of illumination (Fig. 1). His resulting publication Micrographia (Hooke 1665) contained some wonderfully innovative pictures of micro-

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,5-12.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Edward Lhwyd were to prove of some importance to the early days of the study of fossil plants.

The Enlightenment

Fig. 1. Robert Hooke's compound microscope, with a new technique of illumination (from his Micrographid).

scopic life. He experimented and lectured on physics, chemistry and biology, amongst other subjects. His work on fossils later earned him the title of The First English Geologist' (Rossiter 1935). He believed that fossils were of organic origin and suggested that they could be time markers, and could be used to erect a chronology.

Journal des Savants and the Philosophical Transactions The early years of the 17th century were dubbed 'the republic of letters' by Denis de Salo, who founded his Journal des Savants in 1665. (Rappaport 1997, p. 7). This journal was a means of exchanging information in the world of learning (which embraced scholarship of all kinds, especially science) to keep abreast of developments. Previously, such exchanges had been brought about by private correspondence; still of importance after this and other journals were founded. The Royal Society's journal Philosophical Transactions became an important vehicle of communication, useful for Fellows who had little time to meet in London, such as Robert Plot, Edward Lhwyd, Martin Lister and John Ray, and helped to create an international 'republic' of scientists. Universities and museums were also to play their part. The content and use of collections held by these institutions was somewhat limited, due mainly to the difficulties of travel and the generally bad state of the roads. Yet, the problems began to be lessened during the 17th century. Here the works of Robert Plot and

Those trends in 18th century thought and literature in Europe and the Colonies in the Americas before the French Revolution were referred to by many of the writers of that period as 'The Age of Enlightenment', for they were convinced that they were emerging from centuries of ignorance and darkness into a new age that was enlightened by reason, science and a new respect for humanity. Isaac Newton's discovery of universal gravity and his other discoveries were very influential here, as was the earlier work of Copernicus and Galileo. Their discoveries of the laws of nature assisted the growing belief in the power of human reason. The early rationalist philosophers, such as Descartes, Leibnitz and Spinoza, together with the political philosophers, Hobbes and Locke, influenced very much the thought and science of that century. Most of the thinkers of the Enlightenment rejected many of the intricacies of the Christian religion, but without renouncing religion altogether. They still believed in the existence of God and of a hereafter, but rather emphasized the proposition that the improvement of life on Earth was more important than concentrating on the next world. Worldly happiness was placed above religious salvation. The Church was seen as a suppressor of the free exercise ofreason. As the Enlightenment was more of a way of thought than a set of fixed ideas, the resulting diversity not only increased the directions in which thought was to develop, but enriched the whole of human activity. Science was thus one of the main benefactors. The Enlightenment was, by its nature, a very cosmopolitan movement with representatives throughout Europe and the American colonies: David Hume in Scotland; Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in America; and in Germany Christian Wolff, Gotthold Lessing and Emmanuel Kant. In France, the home ofthephilosophes, where it was a very self-conscious movement, such names as Charles de Montesquieu, Denis Diderot and, the most significant, Voltaire were important influences. Voltaire popularized the science and philosophy of his age in his varied works, and was a great model for many writers throughout Europe. France was also the home of that other great original, JeanJacques Rousseau, whose works stressed the social nature of a person and helped to refute the charge that the Enlightenment exalted cold reason at the expense of emotion. In the first half of the 18th century the philosophes waged an uphill struggle against censorship, attacks

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by the Church and even imprisonment. By the 1770s, they had become more of an influence; for through books and newspapers their views had attained a wide readership. They were welcomed at the courts of many of the 'enlightened despots' of Europe, such as Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia and Joseph II of Austria, who found many of their ideas useful. They were admirers of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, which they saw as the beginnings of their ideas rinding political form. Yet, the Age of the Enlightenment is said to have ended in 1789 with the French Revolution. If to many it was too radical and to the Romantics too soulless, it had an influence that persisted into the 19th and 20th centuries. It was a real influence on the growth and development of the sciences. Yet, the Enlightenment owed much to its 17th century predecessors, especially those who worked at the sciences. Here the names of Robert Plot and Edward Lhwyd were of some importance

Robert Plot (1640-1696) Plot was born at Borden, Kent in 1640, educated at the free school at Wye and matriculated at Oxford from Magdalen Hall in 1658. He graduated with a BA in 1661, MA in 1664 and DCL in 1671. He later entered as a commoner at University College, Oxford, having already directed his attention to the study of natural history and antiquities. In 1677 he published The Natural History of Oxford-shire, dedicated to Charles II and illustrated with a map and 16 plates by Burghers. This seems to have earned him the Secretaryship of the Royal Society in 1682: he had been elected a Fellow in 1677. Burghers' fossil illustrations were later borrowed by Richard Brookes, MD for his Natural History (Brookes 1763). They demonstrate very well the descriptions, by Plot and other naturalists of his time, of what were called 'formed stones', and labelled after whatever parts of plant or animal forms they most strongly resembled (Fig. 2) (Bassett 1982). In 1683,12 cartloads of Tradescant's rarities came from London to Oxford. John Tradescant, the younger, had left this collection, known as Tradescant's 'Ark', collected by himself and his father and housed at South Lambeth Road in London, to Elias Ashmole, antiquarian and scientist. In his turn, Ashmole offered the 'Ark' to the university, who built a new museum for the collection near the Bodleian Library and named it the Ashmolean after its benefactor. It has the distinction of being the first museum in Britain that was open to the public, both as a private and as a university institution. After many further donations and bequests, a new

Fig. 2. Robert Plot's illustrations of 'Formed Stones' from Richard Brookes's Natural History. (Labelled, following Plot, according to their resemblances.)

Ashmolean was later built in 1899. The Old Ashmolean is now the Museum of the History of Science, whilst the University Museum of Natural History, with the Pitt Rivers Museum, houses the natural history and ethnographical exhibits. The New Ashmolean houses the university's extensive art and archaeological collections. Robert Plot was appointed the first custos of the Ashmolean Museum in 1683, the year that Tradescant's 'Ark' arrived. This was a little over 2 years before he published The Natural History of Stafford-shire (Plot 1686), which was dedicated to James II and was more attractively written than its forerunner. The plates were again by Burghers. It was certainly Plot's original intention to proceed to cover the whole of England and Wales, county by county, (Eyles 1973, p. 4.) The project did not progress, but his successor, Lhwyd, in part continued the process for Wales.

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Plot and his contemporaries were, of course, limited in their abilities to assess the nature of fossils by the current beliefs concerning the nature of the world and how it came into existence. The Western World firmly believed in the Biblical teachings, which were accepted as 'Gospel Truth'. After all, the varied versions of the Protestant faiths were based on newly acquired Bible translations and interpretations. The Noachian Deluge was regarded as a major event in Earth history. Although there were differences of opinion on such matters as whether or not it was responsible for the presence of fossil shells found in rocks, even high up in mountains, the truth of the event was unquestioned. After all, it was not many years since Archbishop Ussher had calculated, using the best scholarship of his time, that the Earth had been created by God in 4004 BC (Ussher 1650-1654; Fuller 2001). Nicolaus Steno (1638-1696) had asserted in two books published in 1667 and 1669 that fossils were truly animal remains, for he believed that nothing but a shark could make sharks' teeth. Previously, fossilized specimens of these were popularly thought of as 'tongue stones' (glossopetrae) that represented the tongues of serpents or birds (Steno 1667). These books were certainly the first geological treatises and he was the founder of geological science. Plot was acquainted with the views of Steno, but strongly opposed them: he described the 'formed stones' of Oxfordshire, and Burghers illustrated them with such a degree of accuracy that we can still recognize and identify the different species represented in the fossils. While rejecting the idea of the organic origin of fossils, Plot saw that to do so caused many problems, but worked hard to formulate a plausible alternative. In opting for a form of crystallization, i.e. the 'plastic force' that made fossils, he found fewer difficulties in following that hypothesis than in following Steno. Sollas later observed 'Geology required a prophet, and she found him in Steno, but she also required a critic, and in Plot she met with one of the most penetrating intellect and uncompromising spirit' (Sollas 1905,239). Plot's description of fossils begins with those that appear to have some connection with the heavenly bodies such as sun-stones, of which none were found in Oxfordshire, moon-stones or Selenites, and starstones or Asteria, having a pentagonal shape in cross-section, such as in the stems of crinoids. He experimented with these by steeping them overnight in vinegar and thus separating individual columns from one another. He also defined what he called Astroites or starry-stones, which were mainly part of fossil corals, adorned with constellations of stars. He followed the common belief that the pointed internal guards of fossil belemnites were generated in clouds as 'thunderbolts' (Bassett 1982,7).

As in the Burghers drawings borrowed later by Brookes, his formed stones from the vegetable kingdom in Plot's Oxford-shire are named according to their resemblances. Figure 2 from Brookes is named directly according to the descriptions for Plot's plate 6. As Challinor pointed out, Plot gives full and careful descriptions, with localities (Challinor, 1953-1954, p. 134). This was not yet the beginning of palaeobotany; the word had not yet been invented. Both Plot and his successor were merely the heralds of later developments. They were each instrumental in encouraging the necessity of collections made in as many places as possible. Others were to follow and local collectors would, eventually, be recognized as being of great importance in adding to our knowledge of Earth processes. Perhaps it was Edward Lhwyd, who took over from Plot, who is the more likely candidate for the title of 'Father of Palaeontology'.

Edward Lhwyd (1660-1709) Lhwyd was born at Glan Ffraid in the parish of Llanfihangel Geneu'r in Cardiganshire. He entered Jesus College, Oxford in 1682. He did not proceed to a degree, but in 1684 was appointed Underkeeper of the recently established Ashmolean, and when Plot resigned in 1690 became the Head Keeper. His keepership was distinguished by frequent travel for the purpose of collecting natural history and other specimens. Edmund Gibson, later Bishop of Lincoln, employed him in 1693 to collect materials in Wales for a new edition of Camden's Britannia, which was published in 1695. Lhwyd issued a circular inviting subscriptions to enable him to take an extended 5 year-tour of Wales to collect both antiquarian and scientific material (Gunther 1945, p. 13). A public subscription was opened in 1697; and to assist this request for financial aid, Lhwyd issued a syllabus, entitled 'Parochial queries in order to a Geographical Dictionary, a Natural History, & c., of Wales' (Gunther 1945, p. 17). He visited every Welsh county, made extracts from manuscripts, copied inscriptions and collected curiosities. In Montgomery, in 1698, he began the preface to his first published work: 'Lythophylacii Britannici ichnographia; . . .' (Lhwyd 1699). This contained some of his drawings of fossil plants (Fig. 3). Contrary to Lhwyd's expectations, and although it contained a methodical catalogue of the Ashmolean's fossils, the work obtained no printing costs from the university. These were paid for by Sir Hans Sloane, and others of his learned friends, including Sir Isaac Newton. As Lhwyd was absent from Oxford at the time of printing, the first edition

THE RISE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

9

Fig. 3. Edward Lhwyd's plant fossils from his Lythophylacii Britannici ichnographia. (a) Fossil plants of the genus Neuropteris: 188, N. schlehani Stur; 189, N. heterophylla Brogniart; 191, 197, 186, Neuropteris sp. (b) 184b, Cordaites sp. 201, Annularia sp.; 202, Annularia sphenophylloides Zenker; 184a, ? Pecopteris sp.; 190 ? Neuropteris tenuifolia Schlotheim.

was full of inaccuracies. The second, corrected, edition was not published until 1760, after his death. In 1699 he visited Scotland, and the following year he went to Ireland and Cornwall. In 1701 he visited Brittany, where he was arrested as a spy and spent 18 days in prison and was only released on condition that he left the country forthwith. Lhwyd was created an MA on his return to Oxford by the 1701 Convocation, on condition he should read a yearly lecture on 'Natural History' every year for 6 years. He spent a few years arranging the results of the research carried out on his travels. There were delays from the printers, so the first part of what was to have been a very comprehensive work, entitled Archaeologia Britannica, did not appear until 1707. This first part was all that was published and, unfortunately, the subject matter of this volume was 'Glossography', an elaborate 'comparative etymology' of the Celtic languages: Welsh, Irish, Cornish and Breton. Other planned subjects remained unpublished, including his collected antiquarian, natural history and geological material (Gunther 1945, pp.

41-44). He did, however, touch on these subjects in papers for the Royal Society (Lhwyd, 1712,1713). Lhwyd was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1708, despite opposition from Dr John Woodward with whom he had quarrelled over the origin of marine fossils that Woodward had ascribed to the Biblical Deluge. Lhwyd was firmly against the idea that the Biblical Flood could account for fossils (Gunther 1945, pp. 381-396). John Woodward, on the other hand, had developed a somewhat complicated hypothesis. He imagined that all of the materials of the Earth's crust were either dissolved or held in suspension at the time of the Deluge and were then deposited in layers according to their densities when the waters receded. It was as if God had switched off the normal process of gravity, and then switched it back on again, when the layers settled in order of increasing density (Woodward 1695, pp. 29 and 74). Although it was clear to many that strata and their contained fossils were not arranged in order of specific gravity, that theory did much to advance the long-standing belief that the Noachian Deluge was

10

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an important event in Earth history; a belief that con- easily be wash'd down by the rain into the depth here required' (Gunther 1945, p. 390). tinued well into the 19th century. It was natural that Lhwyd should have been In the spring of 1609 Lhwyd was elected Superior Beadle of Divinity, an appointment that would have searching for some generally accepted process to done much to alleviate his financial problems if he account for the presence of fossils in rocks. His predhad lived longer, but towards the end of June of that ecessor, Plot, postulated some process akin to crysyear he caught a chill which led to his death from tallization. Lhwyd postulated a development of the pleurisy, complicated with asthma. Unfortunately, natural growth process: from fish roe, in the case of Lhwyd died in debt, for his income as Keeper of the marine fossils; from plant seeds, in the case of plant Ashmolean never exceeded £50 per annum, and as fossils. All of the naturalists of this time can be seen as he had received insufficient subscriptions to finance struggling with the question of explaining the foshis journeys these left him very much out of pocket. His manuscripts were later sold by the university, silization process. Although only Hooke, Steno and and ended up in private hands, some were later Woodward correctly believed in their organic origin, destroyed by fire (Gunther 1945, pp. 553-557). His the theorizing of such as Plot and Lhwyd still played fossil collections were similarly not well enough important parts in the movement of scientific looked after; by 1925 only two specimens of his his- thought towards the eventual rise of the disciplines toric collection were known to have survived of palaeontology and, indeed, of the separate study of palaeobotany. So their contributions are very (Gunther 1945, p. 558). However, Gunther rediscovered at Oriel College worthy of study. Library a number of small fossils, with names, localities and serial numbers in Lhwyd's hand. Gunther deduced that this was a duplicate collection, assem- Richard Brookes, MD (c. 1750) bled by Lhwyd himself for sale to persons interested in geology, and published photographs of this Almost nothing is known about Richard Brookes, important collection of specimens (Gunther 1945, except for a few slight biographical details in some of his writings. We don't even know the dates of his pp. 560-570). Lhwyd recorded, in his published books, very birth and death, except that he died before August little on his ideas about fossils. We have to look at his 1763. He is often confused with others with the same correspondence with his contemporaries, Martin surname. G.T. Bettany in his short entry on Brookes Lister, Richard Richardson and John Ray to see how in the Dictionary of Natural Biography (1886) has his opinions changed and developed. Earlier in his him down as the translator of two books from the contributions to Gibson's edition of Camden's French: The Natural History of Chocolate by Quelus ''Britannia' he had observed: (1730) and The General History of China by Du Halde (1736), both of which were actually translated It will not perhaps be unacceptable to the Curious, if we by a Rev. Richard Brookes, MA, Rector of Ashney, take notice here of some delineations of the leaves of Northamptonshire (died 1737) (Rogers 1972, p. Plants, that are found upon sinking new Coal pits in the 156). Township of Leeswood in this parish (Mold). These... are Our Richard Brookes produced a large number of probably found in most other parts of England and Wales, books on many subjects, including one on angling, where they dig Coal... I shall venture to affirm, that these but mainly medical. All were mostly compilations Plants (whatever may be their origin) are distinguishable from the works of others. His most lasting compilainto species, as those produced in the Surface .. . amongst tion was his General Gazetteer, published by John these Plants, we find the majority not reconcileable with Newberry (1762), which was a very popular work, those produced in this country; and many of them totally perhaps because of a growing interest in the discovdifferent from all Plants whatever, that have yet been ery of new lands and the beginnings of colonization. described (Camden 1695, p. 827). It went into many editions for the rest of the 18th In a later letter to John Ray, he toyed with the idea century and well into the 19th century. The work was that marine fossils 'might be partly owing to fish- revised by A.G. Findley, in 1842, 1851, 1852 and spawn, received into the chinks and other meatus's 1863, and by J.A. Smith in 1868 and 1876. There of ye earth in the water of the Deluge .. .'(Gunther were also many American editions over the years 1945, p. 389) In the same letter he observed 'these (Rogers 1972, p. 159). mineral plants... are but mere delineations or superBrookes, A New and Accurate System of Natural ficial resemblances, nor yet could such representa- History (1763) was in six volumes, covering: I, tions be owing to the impressions of plants, since 'Quadrupeds'; II, 'Birds'; III, 'Fishes and Serpents'; consumed, because... they are little rays'd above the IV 'Insects'; V, 'Waters, Earths, Stones, Fossils, surface of the stone and not impress'd' (Gunther Minerals'; and VI, 'Vegetables'. This lengthy work 1945, p. 388). So, as with fish-spawn, 'seeds may was compiled with the aid of one of the great names

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11

Romanticism and 'the Heroic Age of Geology'

Fig. 4. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774).

in the history of English Literature, Oliver Goldsmith (Fig. 4). Goldsmith is mainly known from a mere handful of his works: two great poems, The Traveller' and 'The Deserted Village', one great novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, and one great play, 'She Stoops to Conquer'. His only other play The Good Natured Man' was turned down by David Garrick and was a flop when it was produced by Coleman. Goldsmith, who also trained as a doctor, wrote a great deal of other work, but it was mostly what we would call nowadays 'hackwork'. He would turn his writing talents to writing anything for money as he was always hard up, in part due to a weakness for gambling, but mostly because he was always most generous to helping others in need. He died £2000 in debt. Goldsmith wrote the prefaces to the first four volumes of Brooke's Natural History, but also wrote notices to promote it, and a review of it. As one writer puts it, he was employed 'not only to prepare Brooke's book for the public, but also to prepare the public for Brookes's book' (Rogers 1972, p. 160). This Natural History may seem very unscientific by our modern standards, and as a compilation it contained little in the way of original observations. Volume V, which deals with fossils amongst other things, is plainly a rehashing of the work of Plot and others. Yet, it was an important precursor to a great period of growth of interest in the sciences in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The work sold well and went into a second edition, so it helped to advance the study of natural history.

Amongst historians of English Literature, Goldsmith's poem, The Traveller', opens the period of Romanticism. Romanticism, following a period of Neo-Classicism that was part and parcel of the Enlightenment, was very much involved with an increased growth of interest in nature, and in the natural and physical sciences. The Romantic poets were very much Nature poets, and many had more than a passing interest in the natural world from a scientific viewpoint. It is no coincidence that the Romantic period coincided with what von Zittel called 'the Heroic Age of Geology' - the Age of Hutton, William Smith and the early Lyell. Science and the arts were not then divided into what C.R Snow was later to label The Two Cultures'. Together they were part of a growing culture that tried to describe and understand the world, not only with respect to its life and physical composition, but also the human condition. In the history of the natural sciences, Richard Brookes is a more important representative of his times than is superficially apparent. He, like his predecessors Plot and Lhwyd, is very worthy of our attention.

References BASSETT, M.G. 1982. Formed Stones', Folklore and Fossils. National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. BROOKES, R. 1763. A New and Accurate System of Natural History. Six volumes. J. Newbery, London. CAMDEN, W. 1586. Britannia. Radulph Newberry, London. CAMDEN, W. 1610. Britannia. First English edition. HOLLAND, P. (transl.). Phileman Holland, London. CAMDEN, W. 1695. Britannia. GIBSON, E. (ed.). A. Swale and A. J. Churchill, London. CHALLINOR, J. 1953-1954. The early progress of British geology. Annals of Science, Volumes 9 and 10. Taylor & Francis, London. EYLES, V.A. 1973. Introduction. (Facsimile) of John Woodward's (1696 ) 'Brief Instructions for Making Observations in all Parts of the World'. Arno Press, New York, London. FULLER, J.G.C.M. 2001. Before the hills in order stood: the beginning of the geology of time in England. In: LEWIS, C.L.E. & KNELL, S.J. (eds) The Age of the Earth from 4004 EC to AD 2002. The Geological Society, London. GUNTHER, R.T. 1945. Early Science in Oxford, Volume XIV. Life and Letters of Edward Lhwyd. Printed for subscribers, Oxford. HOOKE, R. 1665. Micrographia. Royal Society, London. HOOYKAAS, R. 1972. Religion and the Rise of Modern Science. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh. LHWYD, E. 1699. Lithophylacii Britannici ichnographia. Printed for its subscribers, London. LHWYD, E. 1707. Archaeologia Britannica. Printed at the Theatre for the author, Oxford.

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LHWYD, E. 1712. Observations on the Antiquities and Natural History of Ireland Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, xxvii, 503,524. LHWYD, E. 1713. Observations in Natural History and Antiquities, made in travels through Wales and Ireland. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, xxviii, 93-103. LHWYD, E. 1760. Lythophylacii Britannici ichnographia. Editio Altera (HUDDESFORD, W). Clarendon Press, Oxford. PLOT, R. 1677. The Natural History of Oxford-shire. Printed at the Theater for the author, Oxford. PLOT, R. 1686. The Natural History of Stafford-shire. Printed at the Theater, for the author, Oxford. RAPPAPORT, R. 1997. When Geologists were Historians 1665-1750. UP, Cornell. ROSSITER, A.P 1935. The first English geologist: Robert

Hooke (1635-1703). Durham University Journal, 29. STENO, N. 1667. Dissection of a Shark's Head. Stella, Florence. (GARBOE, A. (transl.) 1958. St. Martin's Press, London.) STENO, N. 1669. De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus. ex typographia sub signo stellae, Florence. USSHER, J. 1650-1654. Annales Veteris etNovi Testamenti. ex officina J. Flesher & prostart apud J. Crook & J. Baker, London. WEBSTER, J. 1654. Academiarum Examen. Giles Calvert, London. WOODWARD, J. 1695. An Attempt Towards a Natural History of the Earth . . . With an Account of the Universal Deluge: and the Effects that it had Upon the Earth. Wilkin, London.

The Moravian minister Rev. Henry Steinhauer (1782-1818); his work on fossil plants, their first 'scientific' description and the planned Mineral Botany HUGH S. TORRENS Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK Present address: Lower Mill Cottage, Furnace Lane, Madeley, Crewe, Cheshire CW3 9EU (e-mail:[email protected]) Abstract: Henry Steinhauer (born in 1782 at Haverfordwest, UK; died in 1818 at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA) was the son of a Moravian minister and teacher. He attended their Yorkshire school from 1789 and then trained for their ministry in Germany. He returned to teach at Fulneck from 1801 to 1811. Moravians particularly encouraged the study of, and participation in, music and natural history, and Fulneck school had a museum for the latter by 1795. At Fulneck Steinhauer came across the fossil plants found in nearby coal mines. By 1811 he was suffering from consumption. To improve his health he moved temporarily to London where he tried to encourage James Sowerby to undertake a 'Mineral Botany' project to parallel Sowerby's one on fossil shells, Mineral Conchology. Sadly, this failed to come to fruition. Next Steinhauer moved to Bath, where he became a disciple of the stratigraphic methods of William Smith. In 1814 he received a call to teach at the new world Moravian settlement of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, USA. He set off late in 1815 and there presented his only palaeobotanical paper to the American Philosophical Society in May 1817. This gave scientific descriptions of 10 species of English fossil coal plants and introduced valid binomial nomenclature for such fossils. His large collection of stratigraphically arranged fossils from all over England, and its detailed manuscript catalogue all predating his 1815 departure, survive in Philadelphia. His work has largely been lost sight of because of his early death and the tragic separation of this fine collection from its place of origin. He deserves to be better known.

John Walton's (1895-1971) review article (Walton 1959) on 'Palaeobotany in Great Britain' passed straight from James Parkinson's publication (Parkinson 1804) to Henry Witham's (Witham 1831), thus ignoring the significant work carried out in England between at least 1811 and 1815 by Henry Steinhauer. Of this the American H.N. Andrews wrote:

from the Yorkshire and Somerset coal fields' (Andrews 1980, p. 178).

Steinhauer's origins

If the duty of the historian 'is to understand and not to judge' (Ellenberger 1988, back cover), we clearly first need to:

Henry Steinhauer was born at 9 o'clock in the evening on 28 February 1782 at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, UK (Haverfordwest Moravian Church Registers, Public Record Office, London, RG4 4076). He was the second son of German-born John Steinhauer (1732-1804), Moravian minister there from 1777 to 1792, and his second wife (they married on 5 April 1774) Anna Mary Gambold (1746-1809), the daughter of Bishop John Gambold (1711-1771 - see the Dictionary of National Biography, hereafter DNB) and his wife Elizabeth nee Walker (1719-1803). They had five children, all, except the first two, born at Haverfordwest:

•

(1)

Although Henry Steinhauer (1818) is usually given credit for being the first to use binomials in describing fossil plants it seems a rather insignificant matter in view of the distinct superiority of Schlotheim's work; he did use binomials in 1820 [but who, unlike Steinhauer, had earlier used non-binomials!], and all but two of the twenty-nine plates are devoted to fossil plants. (Andrews 1980, p. 53.)

• •

learn more of Steinhauer and ask why his work had to be limited to this single publication; ask why Welsh-born Steinhauer's work became 'the earliest significant American publication on fossil plants'; why 'this was something of a paradox in that apparently [in fact actually] all the fossil plants he dealt with . . . were from England, chiefly

(2)

(3)

John Ignatius (1775-?) MD, Edinburgh University 1799; Mary Agnes (1777-?), born at Bristol (where John Steinhauer may have been serving as minister between Fulneck and Haverfordwest); » Daniel (1779-1785); as well as the two most mentioned in this paper

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,13-28.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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(4) Henry, their second surviving son; and (5) his botanist brother, Joseph Daniel Steinhauer, known as Daniel (1785-1852; although his year of birth is as given in the Moravians' meticulous register of births and baptisms, his gravestone at Bethlehem wrongly states it as 1784). Useful biographic data on the family are given in a printed document preserved in the Fulneck archives (Anon. 1784, pp. 23 and 41). For details of the Moravian community in Haverfordwest and the Steinhauer role in it see Jenkins (1938), Jones (1946) and Roberts (1978). Five of John's letters, written here between 1783 and 1790 and published by Roberts (1962, pp. 163, 169, 171-173 and 177), describe their situation there. The Moravians, United Brethren or Herrnhuters were 'a fanatical sect which sprung up in Upper Lusatia [eastern Germany] towards the beginning of the last [18th] century' . . . where they 'were soon joined by a number of proselytes from Moravia . . . Particular attention was paid to the education of youth, in which a greater part of their worship consisted in singing. All matrimonial contracts are subject to the direction and approbation of elders' (see the 1811 entry 'Herrnhuters' in Rees (1802-1820), where there is a also a better balanced view in 1818 under 'Unitas Fratrum'). They were also exempt, with Quakers, by Act of Parliament from compulsory military service (Steinhauer was specifically exempted in 1810 at Fulneck - but recorded as Henry Stineham: Hutton 1953, p. 26). They were also enthusiastic missionaries of their own philosophy all over the world. This gave them unprecedented access to new material throughout the realms of natural history. Henry Steinhauer's education Moravians paid great attention to the education of their children and some of the letters cited above already refer to the safe delivery of some of the Steinhauer children to Fulneck, now a suburb of Leeds, in Yorkshire. Here was the main English seminary for schooling Moravian children and training their priests, and Steinhauer attended the Male Seminary here from 26 March 1789 to 1795 (List of Boys at Fulneck, Fulneck School archives). In July 1792 his father, who had first arrived there as a teacher from Germany in 1763, was selected as Headmaster of Fulneck School. Here he continued until 1797 (Waugh 1909; Hutton 1953, p. 28). He was then moved to Ballymena in Northern Ireland, at a troubled time in Irish history, as minister of their Gracehill Moravian Church Congregation (Waugh 1909, p. 35), where he founded a success-

ful school for girls in 1798 (Hamilton & Hamilton 1967, p. 211 - but who wrongly claim this of Henry Steinhauer; Hanna 1967, pp. 120-127). Here John died in May 1804 ('on 9 May 1804 we received the affecting account', extract of Fulneck Diary for 1801-1805, Fulneck archives). His widow then left Ireland and moved to Liverpool (Vaughan 1931, p. 86), perhaps to live with her eldest son, John, who was a doctor. Children at Moravian schools were introduced to the study of natural history and the creations of God at an early age. The examination scheme in use at Fulneck in May 1795 shows how Henry Steinhauer played a major role in this study of natural history, while still a pupil there. Thirteen year-old Steinhauer is named as then being examined in Writing, Book keeping, Geometry and Logarithms (in which he had had private mathematical instruction), English Grammar and Poetry, Greek, Latin and Latin Poetry, Geography, French and Natural History (Public Examination of the Boys in Fulneck Oeconomy in Presence of all the members of the Elders Conference, 21 May 1795, manuscript in Fulneck School archives). In the last subject, Natural History, Steinhauer recorded during a joint dialogue with his fellow pupils Thomas and John Binns (these two came from Bath), B. Angell and J. Hinchclife and their teacher Brother Holmes, how: Natural History has always been a favourite study of mine, and it is with the sincerest gratitude that I acknowledge the opportunity given us of being instructed in this most agreeable, and I might add, most useful science. . . . Anything that conduces to the improvement of the understanding must be acknowledged useful, and that which does this the most effectually may be deemed of the greatest utility. And nothing I think (if we except mathematics) can be more serviceable in this respect than Natural History. By this we are made acquainted with the effects and causes of a great many objects of which we should otherwise remain ignorant. [He ended his discourse] I still beg leave to return our warmest acknowledgements to all those friends who have in any wise assisted us in the collection of our Museum, which is a very great requisite for the more effectual instruction in Natural History.

This gives clear evidence, from school archives, that their School Museum was in existence from at least 1795. It was later recorded by: a friend of the brethren writing in 1801 [how] a museum has lately been opened by Mr Steinhauer [senior at Fulneck] for public inspection and as it is well supplied by the Brethren's Missionaries abroad, it exhibits a tolerable collection of valuable curiosities. Concerts are regularly performed every week and having been more once present, I can safely say that the musical performance exceeded my warmest expectations. (C— 1887.)

HENRY STEINHAUER AND MINERAL BOTANY

Music was also especially encouraged in Moravian circles (Ingram 1982). The, sadly now former, existence of this museum was recalled to me by the school's historian (letter from Robin Hutton to H.S. Torrens, 29 August 1985): I remember this museum well. It was in glass cupboards at the back of one of the class rooms and was only removed comparatively recently - perhaps twenty years ago [c. 1965] when, as I remember it, the contents were simply thrown away - things like South Sea Island Shells [sent back, no doubt, by Moravian missionaries there] and fossils [no doubt including many of Henry Steinhauer's collection].

Both this museum (despite its recent destruction) and Steinhauer's personal collections of fossils must have greatly benefited from the fossil treasures to be found in the local coal and iron mines. Steinhauer next studied at the German seminaries of the Moravians at Barby and Niesky in eastern Germany between 1795 and 1801. Barby lies a few kilometres SE of Magdeburg and Niesky many kilometres to the east, close to the Polish border, NE of Dresden. At both, a great deal of attention was again paid to natural history and to creating museums. That at Barby has received fascinating recent attention from Augustin (1994). Having finished his education in Germany, Henry Steinhauer was appointed as a teacher back at the Boys' Moravian School at Fulneck, where he arrived on 3 October 1801 (extract of Fulneck Diary for 1801-1805, Fulneck School archives). His re-acquaintance with this part of Yorkshire between Leeds and Bradford could now start in earnest.

Steinhauer's first interests in science Steinhauer was clearly already interested in general science and his first recorded writings are three short articles or letters on hieroglyphics, minerals and meteorology, written from Fulneck, in William Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy (Steinhauer 1804, 1806, 1807: the last records a meteorological observation he made in June 1805 at sea off the coast of North Wales). In June 1808 Steinhauer was appointed principal tutor, or first teacher, of the: Institute called the New Academy or Paedagogium in distinction from the Boarding School itself. Here the higher branches of learning as mathematics, algebra, natural philosophy should be taught in the same manner as in the Paedagogicum at Niesky. (Extract of Fulneck Diary from 1806 to 1808, Fulneck School archives.)

This was where candidates for the Moravian ministry could be trained (Hamilton & Hamilton 1967, p. 212). A later writer noted how:

15

Our connection with our German congregations secured a supply of well-educated classical and mathematical teachers . . . far beyond what was at that time usual in the majority of private schools in England. Among many gifted teachers of these times, the universal testimony of those who were then pupils points to the name of Br. H[enry] Steinhauer, who inheriting his father's zeal, and endowed with extraordinary acquirements in most departments of science . . . enabled this institution to afford a more liberal education than most others. (Anon. 1855, p. 46.)

Henry Steinhauer's interest in fossils and, especially in fossil plants, had certainly been first stimulated in the Fulneck area. Fulneck was a village 4.5 miles west of Leeds. Within 1.5 miles to the SE then lay the Low Moor ironworks, near Bradford (Dodsworth 1971). These had been founded in 1788, just as Steinhauer arrived there at school, using both the Black Band Coal Seam and the valuable overlying Carboniferous ironstones. By 1795 James Watt Junior could note of these works 'better forged work I never saw, nor better castings' (Firth 1977, p. 134). These works were controlled by the non-conformist minister Rev. Joseph Dawson (1740-1813), who had first realized the value of the coal that occurred here with iron. He soon made Low Moor the most renowned ironworks in Yorkshire (Morrell 1985). Dawson was an enthusiastic collector of geological objects, but these were nearly all mineralogical, unlike Steinhauer's collection. A large proportion of them still survive, with their original catalogue, in Bradford City Museum (Pacey 2003). It is important to record that Henry was also, like his better known brother Daniel, a very competent field botanist. He seems to have published nothing in this field, but seven specimens from him are preserved in the herbarium of Jonathan Salt (1759-1815) (Holland 1837, pp. 198-199), now at Sheffield City Museum (Riley 1982, pp. 84-85), whose help Henry also later acknowledged in his 1818 paper. All are from New Holland, or Australia, for example 'Native Specimen from New Holland, Dr Smith, Communicated by Mr H. Steinhauer, Fulneck'. These all derive from Dr James Edward Smith (1759-1828), first president of the Linnean Society of London, who thus had many chances of distributing such new found material. Steinhauer was able to return the compliment, as Smith's own herbarium contained botanical material from Labrador that Henry had obtained for him from Moravian missionaries working there (Savage 1963, p. Iviii - citing items 807.72 and 839.10; see also 839.8). These are all from 'Labrador [from] Mr Steinhauer by James Sowerby', who had clearly acted as intermediary here. These last must thus derive from Henry's time in London after 1811.

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H.S. TORRENS

William Martin and palaeobotany Others were also now busy on the fossil plants found in England. The most important was William Martin (1767-1810) 'comedian and writing-master', who married Mrs Mary Adams 'an unfortunate but interesting young widow . . . and actress' at Stoke-onTrent in April 1797 (Hull 1812, p. 560). In 1809 Martin issued a notice recording that: Mr W. Martin is preparing for the press, to be published by subscription, the second volume of his Petrificata Derbiensia, or Figures and Descriptions of Purifications collected in Derbyshire of which the first volume has just appeared [Martin 1809]. A considerable portion of the plates in the second volume will be appropriated to the illustration of specimens collected in coal soils, and particularly of such species of Reliquiae [fossils] as have not hitherto been figured or described by English Authors. (Anon. 1809.)

Steinhauer's own copy of Martin (1809) survives (but this is apparently one purchased by him in America) in the library of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia - hereafter ANSP. It carries his interesting annotations. Plate 1 for example, figuring fossil wood from Derbyshire, he records was 'in the collection of Mr W. Watson of Bakewell [see below]. The remainder of the log was sent to the Empress of Russia'. The goniatite figured on plate 7 is correctly noted as being a 'cast from the interior of the shell. The outside is marked with fine striae (Mr Sowerby's specimens)' [again, see below]. The coral figured on plate 44 Figure 5, he thought 'from the examination of numerous specimens had misled Martin'. He also comments on trilobites and some fossil plants that Martin had also figured here. Sadly, Martin was soon to die of the scourge of consumption in Macclesfield on 31 May 1810 and so his intended second volume on fossil plants was never published. This is one reason why Martin's work on the fossil plants of the Carboniferous has, like Steinhauer's, been so forgotten, although Challinor (1948) made a brave attempt to record his importance. A more significant reason is that Martin did not use binomial nomenclature for those fossils he did describe and so none of his works satisfy the later rules of the International Commissions of either Zoological or Botanical Nomenclature (see MuirWood 1951; Stubblefield 1951).

Henry Steinhauer's travels in the north of England Steinhauer was active as a naturalist while in the north of England and clearly travelled a good deal while based at Fulneck. His visit to Sheffield on 9 January 1811, where 'through a community of botan-

ical tastes, and admiration for a man of remarkable native capacity, he was greatly attracted by Jonathan Salt', was noted by T.A. Ward (Bell 1909, p. 166). Steinhauer was the 'late friend of mine, highly gifted with genius' who was recorded by James Montgomery (1771-1854 - see DNB\ his fellow Moravian, as being Salt's close botanical collaborator whenever Steinhauer visited Sheffield (Anon. 1889, pp. iv-v). At some stage, and surely before August 1811 when he visited Northumberland, Henry Steinhauer must also have become involved with the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, which, between March 1816 and March 1817, elected him an Honorary Member (Anon. 1817, p. 7). Later, in 1811, Steinhauer subscribed to the Derbyshire geologist White Watson's (1760-1835) book on the strata of Derbyshire as 'of Fulneck, Yorkshire' (Watson 1811). But Steinhauer too, like Martin, had now become a victim of the scourge of consumption and he now suffered a relapse in his health at Fulneck. In August 1811 it was reported: that Henry Steinhauer who had protracted his excursion to Northumberland in hopes of receiving benefit from a change of air and from exercise, returned in a poor state of health. [Then on 15 September 1811] Br. Reichel . . . [who] had purposely come from Dublin to see him once more, expecting him to be near his end, which however was not the case. [On 19 September 1811 Steinhauer] having been advised by the Physicians, to try the London air for the recovery of his health and intending to set out this evening addressed the children once more at their morning meeting and took an affecting farewell of them. (Extracts of the Fulneck Congregation 1811-1812, Fulneck School archives.)

London and the Mineral Botany project with James Sowerby In London Henry Steinhauer soon became involved with the recently formed (November 1807) Geological Society of London and soon met William Smith's friend James Sowerby (1757-1822), who was busy working on his soon-to-be-published multi-volume Mineral Conchology (Sowerby & Sowerby 1812-1846), of which the first part was issued in June 1812. Seven volumes of this were finally published to illustrate British fossil shells and their stratigraphic distributions. This was in large part to demonstrate the significance of Smith's stratigraphic work. Steinhauer contributed many specimens for illustration and description in this pioneering venture and these appeared from Volume 1, part 3 (p. 80**, October 1813) right up to Volume 5 (September 1825), well after Steinhauer had died in America. The full list of Steinhauer's pecimens is worth recording here: his specimens are cited on the following pages:

HENRY STEINHAUER AND MINERAL BOTANY

•

Volume 1 - 80**, 91, 101, 132, 196, 197, 199, 218; Volume 2-4,20,26,28,78,180,181,219-220; Volume 3 - 5,7,11,46,64,78,172; Volume 4-36; Volume 5-11,67,164; a specimen of fossiliferous (carboniferous) limestone was cited in British Mineralogy, Volume 5,98 (1817).

On 3 April 1812 Henry Steinhauer was introduced as a visitor to the Geological Society meeting in London (manuscript Minutes of the Geological Society of London ordinary and general meetings) by George Bellas Greenough (1778-1855), the then current President (Woodward 1907, p. 286). Steinhauer's 'Notice relative to the Geology of the Coast of Labrador' was then read for him (Steinhauer 1814) and relevant specimens then donated to that Society's museum (Anon. 1814, p. 541). The material he then described from here was based on observations and collections made by Moravian missionaries who had long been active there (Hamilton & Hamilton 1967, pp. 148-9). In this paper Steinhauer described (Steinhauer 1814, pp. 493^1-94) a huge cave on the extreme north point of the eastern coast of Labrador, which the Eskimos had declared was the devil's habitation. This was later named The Steinhauer Cavern' - 'after the man who first drew attention to it' (Gibb 1860, p. 171). By August 1812 Steinhauer was 'out of employment and he is now engaged by the Society for the furtherance of the Gospel in London in re-editing the Greenland history. He is much improved in his health but cannot bear much publick speaking' (Minutes of the Provincial Elders Conference, Moravian Church House archives). This Greenland history must refer to the 1820 edition of David Cranz, (1727-1777) book, which was at least in part clearly updated by Steinhauer (Steinhauer 1820). In the summer of 1812 James Sowerby projected another periodical to accompany his now wellknown Mineral Conchology (on which good progress was soon made). This other project was first noted by another friend of Smith's, John Farey (1766-1826) Senior - see DNB, who reported in July 1812: This able naturalist proposes soon to commence a periodical work, expressly for illustrating Mineral Botany [fossil plants], by coloured plates and descriptions; Number 1 of his periodical work on Mineral Conchology has appeared, in which it will continue to be his first care to give accurate coloured plates, and descriptions of all the numerous species of shells found in the Highgate Tunnel [now Archway, London]. (Farey 1812.)

This Mineral Botany project was intended to document the palaeobotany of British strata. It had been similarly inspired, as had Mineral Conchology, by

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William Smith's recently re-announced ordering of British strata (Farey 1811; Parkinson 1811) after the formation of the Geological Society. This had convinced many, but not the leaders of the Geological Society (Torrens 2001, pp. 74-77), that this ordering of strata constituted a major scientific breakthrough. A series of letters between Steinhauer and Sowerby show that Steinhauer was the prime mover in this whole Mineral Botany project. The major causes for its failure to appear must have been because of • •

Henry Steinhauer's illness; and his emigration to North America;

as well as the financial problems then facing all such publications. We have details of this publication from five manuscript letters from Steinhauer to Sowerby that survive both in Bristol (four in the Eyles Archive, Bristol University Library) and London (one in Natural History Museum archives). The first, of 3 September 1812, notes how on an excursion to Hampton Court, Steinhauer had noted that the floor beneath the left-hand great staircase proved to be 'of red and grey flagstones similar to those at Chelsea Hospital, I found that they abounded in Orthoceratites to the full as beautiful as those in the latter place'. He continued: with regard to Fossil Botany or whatever other title you purpose to give to your new publication, in case you wish me to assist and think that my assistance would be of service to you, I would propose instead of the introduction which I prefixed to the paper which I showed you [presumably an early draft of Steinhauer (1818)], to write one applicable to this whole branch of natural history, distinguishing its object and province, its subdivisions and an account of what little has been done as far as has come under my observation. (Steinhauer to Sowerby, Natural History Museum archives.)

He then continued with many other suggestions for the planned first and second issues. These included 'I wish you could have the descriptions of the fossil ferns by Dr [J.E.] Smith; they will, if they are to be classical which I could wish them, require a hand intimately acquainted with the phraseology of botany as applied to the description of the Filices'. Steinhauer's next letter of 14 December 1812 from Bath reads: How do your plates of Mineral Botany proceed? I am very eager to see them; as soon as you can send me proofs, pray do it, & you shall have my remarks reduced to the most suitable form that I am able . . . [Steinhauer then asks Sowerby for dried ferns] which I am very anxious to obtain in order to acquire some extended knowledge of that family upon which the explanation of so many of the remains [fossils] in the Coal strata must depend. (Steinhauer to Sowerby, Eyles archive.)

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But sadly this project was never published, nor were Steinhauer's contributions, at least in England. One of the reasons was certainly the fluctuating state of Steinhauer's health.

Henry Steinhauer moves to Bath, Somerset These walls adorned with monument and bust. Show how Bath waters serve to lay the dust. (Henry Harington (1727-1816) MD on regarding the walls of Bath Abbey.)

Bath was then an oasis at which to seek medical aid. Much such advice was widely available in this area, as evidenced by the long lists of physicians, surgeons, dentists and apothecaries that appear in the Bath directories of the period. This helps explain one of their cynical comment's quoted above (Torrens 2002, chap. 3, p. 218). By September 1812 Steinhauer's health had improved and so, on 23 October 1812, he had been moved to Bath to try and improve it further. Here he first lived in Princes Street, off Queen Square. He was now to act as an assistant to the aged Moravian minister then in Bath, Rev. Christopher Gottfried Clemens (1742-?). Steinhauer occasionally also served the congregation at Bristol (Minutes of the Elders Conferences at Bath and Bristol, Moravian Church house archives, London). The congregation at Bath including two of Steinhauer's old Fulneck school friends, Thomas and John Binns (1782-1818), booksellers in Bath. John's wife Ann Eastcott Hazard (1781-1848) was the eldest daughter of Samuel Hazard (died 1806), who was another Bath-based Moravian. He was a well-known bookseller there and 'the best English printer in his day' (Anon. 1806). After Hazard's death, John Binns, who had come from Dublin, took over the business (Peach 1894). Such contacts would have been useful to Steinhauer's scholarly aspirations now he was away from London. There was another consumptive student of fossils who lived near Bath, at Heytesbury, Wiltshire. This was William Cunnington (1754-1810), who died just before Henry Steinhauer arrived there. In 1804 Cunnington had reported that in 1802 his two doctors, Dr Anthony Fothergill (17327-1813) based in Bath and Dr Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) in Bristol, had 'told me I must ride out [in the fresh air as much as possible] or die' (Cunnington 1975, p. 5). Thomas Beddoes was a famously philanthropic physician, based in nearby Bristol, who specialized in treating consumption or pulmonary tuberculosis, which then could account for a quarter to a half of recorded deaths (Stansfield 1984, pp. 146-152, 180-182 and 214). His advice to seek fresh air and exercise became the driving force behind Cunnington's impressive archaeological and geological researches. Probably, Steinhauer was also advised to follow the same regimen.

In Bath Steinhauer certainly much expanded his fossil collections. The earliest letter to Sowerby from this new location was, as we have seen, dated 14 December 1812. Apart from discussing Mineral Botany, it noted that bad weather and bad health had restricted his ability to gather more Bath fossils for Sowerby. But Steinhauer had already devoted special attention to fossils from the Lias and Oolite rocks at Bath. He was intrigued, as were many later, by the problem of repetitious occurrences of oolitic facies in the rocks here. Steinhauer's next letter to Sowerby was dated 8 November 1813. It records that his brother and sister, presumably Daniel and Agnes, had moved to Bristol that summer, and that Henry's health had also 'very materially benefitted - I may say [been] reinstated by my stay in Bath'. Steinhauer had now been busy collecting 'coal petrifications' from the nearby Somerset Coalfield. He had devoted a good deal of time that summer to the study of geology and fossils but 'though the latter abound in our Strata, it is not easy to obtain tolerably perfect specimens'. He asks to hear 'what has been going on in your [Sowerby's] Museum, how the dry rot comes on - or rather goes off (I hope like [Napoleon] Bonaparte at present) and whether you have done anything more to Mineral Botany'. Steinhauer's letter also reported that, in September 1813, he had made a visit to Hembercombe, Blackdown, Devon to study the Greensand fossils then found so abundantly there (see Fitton 1836, p. 238). But he 'could only stay one day at the pits, and as the fossils are by no means very abundant and eagerly sought after by numerous visitors, you are thrown on the mercy of the workmen, who had been recently stripped of their stores'. Finally, he comments on the new craze for fossil 'crocodiles', which the ichthyosaur-to-be discovery that had just been made by the Anning children at Lyme Regis had stimulated in 1812 and 1813: I have not been at all successful in getting, or catching Crocodiles, they are at present very rare here - but I saw a fine head 3 feet long though wanting snout and back part in Mr Johnson's collection in Bristol, from Charmouth. I also got a drawing of two tolerable specimens belonging to Mr Day of Hinton [Charterhouse, near Bath] from the same place. I have been lately examining Mr Geo. Cumberland's collection. [He concluded] a small cabinet of Fossils was lately sold in Bath which I had an eye upon, expecting it would go for nothing, but was much surprised to find it run up to 21 guineas. Does this indicate increase of love to science or decrease of love of money? (Steinhauer to Sowerby, Eyles archive.)

This letter crossed with one from Sowerby of the same date so Steinhauer wrote again on 17 November 1813. He had now sent Sowerby another box of Coal Measure plant fossils from Radford, a

HENRY STEINHAUER AND MINERAL BOTANY

new colliery near the Paulton Basin, just off the Somerset Coal Canal. As some of the some specimens from here were unique, he asked that they should be returned to him 'when you have done with them'. He had also now visited Rev. Joseph Townsend and seen his fine Smithian-ordered collection. Steinhauer sent fuller details of the puzzling stratigraphy and fossil collecting possibilities that he had seen at Blackdown among the silicosis sufferers who mined scythe stones there. These were poignant observations from a fellow consumptive (Steinhauer to Sowerby, Eyles archive). Steinhauer returned to Devon and Cornwall in the spring of 1814. By 13 January 1815, the date of his last known letter to Sowerby, Henry had moved to 9 Mount Beacon, Bath. He first congratulated Sowerby on the completion of his 36-volume English Botany, which he had published with Dr James Edward Smith (1790-1814). It may have been the need to complete that work that had held up the Mineral Botany project. But Steinhauer now thanked Sowerby for some proof plates Sowerby had made for this, including Phytolithus verrucosus. He then noted: You perhaps remember the MSS observations on the unknown vegetable reliquia which I once showed to you. I have been looking these over with a wish to correct them. Would they be of service to you - or shall I send them to the Geol. Soc.? I do not wish them to be lost and I cannot expect to be able to add much to them. If they should be worth printing, in which case they might perhaps spare you some little trouble in compiling letter press to your plates, I should be glad to have a few copies, else I want neither emolument or fame from them. I believe you have some drawings of mine still? . . . The originals (Ironstone petrif.) with the exception of one or two which I may select at a future opportunity, you are very welcome to add to your collection, if they are an addition to it, as they would be too ponderous an appendage to my collection, which stands the chance of having to travel to some distance about next Midsummer. (Steinhauer to Sowerby, Eyles archive.)

So it is clear from this letter that at least some illustrations of Steinhauer's fossil plants intended for Mineral Botany had reached proof stage.

Steinhauer's personal fossil collection Henry Steinhauer's fossil collecting activities in the Bath area are abundantly proved by the many Bath area localities represented in the surviving 170 page catalogue of his fossil collections (now MSS 358 at ANSP), and in the materials from all round this area that he sent to James Sowerby and which were illustrated in Mineral Conchology. These included the phallic shaped Orthoceras steinhaueri Sowerby, published in June 1814, from north of Halifax, since 'whose merit in research deserves esteem and remem-

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brance'. On this topic, Steinhauer could cheekily reply on 13 January 1815 to Sowerby, 'thank you for the honor of dedicating an Orthocera to me. As I am not yet married, the compliment cannot be misunderstood' (Steinhauer to Sowerby, Eyles archive). In the 3 years from October 1812 until his departure for America late in November 1815, Steinhauer became closely involved with the many Bath fossil collectors that William Smith's earlier activities there had so fostered (Torrens 2002, chap. 3). The catalogue of his fossil collections (MSS 358 at ANSP) is now labelled 'Steinhauer on Fossils - J.P. W.[etherill]'. It records the names of 13 local collectors and one dealer in fossils with whom he was there in contact. These include in alphabetical order: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

George Weare Braikenridge (1775-1856) of Brislington (see Stoddard 1981); Rev. William Daniel Conybeare (1787-1857) of Batheaston (see DNB); George Cumberland (1754-1848) of Bristol (see Keynes 1970); Samuel Skurray Day (1787-1816) of Hinton Charterhouse (see Howe et al 1981, p. 12); Rev. Peter Hawker (1773-1833) of Woodchester (see Howe et al 1981, pp. 9-10); James Johnson (c. 1764-1844) of Bristol (see Howeetal. 1981, pp. 12-15); Thomas Meade (1753-1845) of Chatley (see Meade 1956) who was an original Honorary Member of the Geological Society elected in 1807. He was in particularly close contact with Henry Steinhauer. After Steinhauer had made his visit to Blackdown, Devon in 1813 to study the abundant Greensand fossils there, Meade wrote to Greenough on 14 December 1813:

I should have been very actively employed with Steinhauer who has been indefatigable. His map of Strata is the most correct I believe of any that exists, as far as it goes, and he makes an immense geological collection. (Meade to Greenough, 14 December 1813, University College, London archives.)

Sadly, this pioneering MSS Geological Map, another inspired by William Smith's soon-to-be published larger versions from 1815 on, is apparently lost but Henry Steinhauer's 'immense collection' still survives in large part as we shall see; (8)

Danzig-born John Samuel Miller (1779-1830) of Bristol, soon-to-be-curator of the Philosophical Institution there (see DNB); (9) Rev. Benjamin Richardson (1758-1832) of Farleigh Hungerford (see Phillips 1844; Torrens & Winston 2002, pp. 300-301); (10) Henry Shorto (1778-1864) of Salisbury, (see Torrens 1990a, p. 182);

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(11) Rev. Joseph Townsend (1739-1816) of Bath and Pewsey, Wiltshire (see DNB; Phillips 1844; Torrens 19900, pp. 175-176. Henry Steinhauer's heavily annotated copy of Townsend's 1813 magnum opus on geology also survives in the ANSP library; (12) 'Dr' Charles Hunnings Wilkinson (1763/1764-1850) who was a scientific and medical writer and lecturer, and who had settled in Bath as proprietor of the Kingston Hot Baths. He played an important part in disseminating Smith's results here (Wilkinson 1811). However, his foundation of a third Bath Philosophical Society in December 1815, occured just after Steinhauer had left that city for America (Torrens 1990£, pp. 180 and 184); (13) Jacob Wilkinson (1773-1844) of Springfield House, Bath. He was one of the first Honorary Members (1807) of the Geological Society (but wrongly recorded by that society as Joseph and whose premature death was also wrongly reported by it as occurring in 1827). His 'collection of fossil bones is, perhaps, the finest private one in England' (Warner 1811, p. 177). In addition, Henry's catalogue cited material he had bought from (14) the local Bath fossil dealer James Duffield; or had seen preserved in (15) the Baptist Academy's Museum in Bristol, which was set up in 1784 (see Torrens 2002, chap. 3, p. 232). Other collections/collectors mentioned in this catalogue are (16) William Bullock (c. 1773-1849) the London museum-keeper, showman and auctioneer (see Howeetal. 1981, pp. 12-14); (17) John Farey (1766-1826) mineral surveyor of London (see DNB; Torrens 2002); (18) Sir Everard Home (1756-1832) surgeon and anatomist at the Royal College of Surgeons Museum, London (see DNB); (19) Ashurst Majendie (1784-1857) FRS (see Montgomery-Massingberd 1972, Vol. 3, p. 602), barrister and one of the founders of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall in 1814; (20) William Martin (1767-1810) of Macclesfield (see above); (21) James Sowerby (1757-1822) of London (see above). In my personal copy of the plates from Sowerby's Mineral Conchology, plate 500, Fig. 1, the smaller 'Ammonites humphresianus' has been anonymously annotated in MSS 'also Bradford [Yorkshire],

Steinhauer', showing that Steinhauer material was available to other collectors; (22) White Watson (1760-1835) of Bakewell. As we have seen, Steinhauer was also a subscriber to Watson's book (Watson 1811); (23) The Fulneck Catalogue. This was a catalogue of museum material then held at his old School (for details of which see earlier). Professor William Buckland's (1784-1856) archive in Oxford University's Museum of Natural History contains a manuscript, watermarked 1811 but otherwise not dated, 'List of Mr Strinawer [sic], 9 Mount Beacon, Bath'. This lists the strata found round Bath from the 'Chalk with flints' down to the 'Mountain Lime'. Such an ordering of strata must date, from the address given, from between November 1813 and late 1815. It shows Steinhauer's influence in spreading the word of the results of Smith's ordering of the strata round Bath to Oxford University. But in October 1814 Henry Steinhauer was now called by the Moravian community to new service, as inspector of the Girls' Boarding house at Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, 50 miles from Philadelphia in North America. This was the 'distant travel' of which Steinhauer had warned Sowerby in January 1815. Such a position demanded that Henry should be married, so a frantic search was started to find him a wife, who, according to Moravian tradition, had to be one agreed by lot within their community. After four potential wives had turned him down (details of whom are recorded in Bath Moravian minutes), on 21 September 1815 he married Ann Mary Child (1787-?) from Fulneck at Birstall Church, near Leeds (The Iris, or Sheffield Advertiser, 10 October 1815). She was the eldest daughter of fellow Moravian, James Child (1746-?), a wool stapler of Fulneck who had married Hannah Mirfield (1760-?) on 6 November 1786. Mary had earlier also attended Fulneck School (Moravian Church House archives, London).

Henry Steinhauer in America On his arrival in America on 17 February 1816, Henry Steinhauer became Principal of the Bethlehem Moravian Girls' Boarding School, or seminary for young ladies (Reichel 1858, pp. 188-199). Here he again encouraged the study of natural history among his new charges, who by April 1818 had reached 150. But his only publication in America was understandably that on the British Carboniferous fossil plants that he had brought with him. This was clearly based on all the work he had done for James Sowerby's abortive Mineral Botany project. Part of his paper was read to the American Philosophical Society (hereafter APS) by its English-born librarian

HENRY STEINHAUER AND MINERAL BOTANY

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This paper, of 32 pages and four plates, is important: • • •

it introduced valid binomial nomenclature for fossil plants for the first time and it was the first American publication to both: directly espouse Smithian stratigraphic methods and results; and to concern fossil plants.

It is nice to learn that offprints, at least, were available in April 1818 for Steinhauer to send out. One at least has survived, dedicated 'with the Author's respects' to G.B. Greenough (Geological Society of London library). Another reached George Cumberland according to his letter to G.B. Greenough announcing Henry Steinhauer's death; which commented that 'he was a patient enquirer and a very worthy man' (University College, London, Greenough archives, letter of 28 September 1818).

Henry Steinhauer's tragic last year and death Fig. 1. Henry Steinhauer c. 1816 (from Reichel 1858).

John Vaughan (1756-1841) on 2 May 1817 (Phillips 1885, p. 47), to which society, based in Philadelphia, Henry was duly elected a member on 17 October 1817 (Phillips 1885, p. 474) on the nomination of Zaccheus Collins (1764-1831), scientist and philanthropist, and Abbe Jose Francisco Correia da Serra (1751-1823) Portuguese-born botanist and refugee (see Diogo & Carneiro 2001). Steinhauer's paper was sent out to three referees, Zaccheus Collins, William Maclure (1763-1840), the so-called 'father of American Geology' (see Morton 1841) and his fellow refugee from England, the radical Dr Thomas Cooper (1759-1839), who had earlier gone to North America soon after Joseph Priestley (1733-1804). He became Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania (Greene 1984). Their referees report survives. It recommended that the paper, as a: very full and accurate description of many varieties of vegetable impressions on schistose and other kinds of Stone..., deserves to be inserted in the Society's volume as being well calculated to assist in the future classification of these interesting remains. (APS archives, 15 May 1817, Report of Committee.)

It (Steinhauer 1818) was duly published in April 1818, according to Steinhauer's letter to Zaccheus Collins of 25 April 1818 (ANSP archives).

Steinhauer's Bethlehem school was very successful and he certainly hoped to continue his work in natural history there. As he explained in a letter of 26 May 1817 to Zaccheus Collins from Bethlehem: I am much obliged to you for your favourable opinion on my paper on extraneous fossils [Steinhauer 1818]. The subject and the correctness of the observations which have not been made in haste must be the excuse for the manner [in which you received it]. I wrote the whole under the influence of violent headache, at a time that I was, and indeed because I was, unfit for any other mental exertion . . . I should be very glad to pursue the subject in this country when opportunities offer, but it requires personal and patient investigation. I have more hopes to do something with another branch, the fossil filicites [ferns] of the coal strata - the subject is not so new but in this country / believe nothing has been done. I have specimens of a good many British species some nondescript [not yet described]. I am expecting V. Schlotheim's work on the German species [Schlotheim 1804] and received when last in Phil[adelphi]a 3 or 4 species of the Rhode Island impressions of ferns which, with some sent over to England by Dr [William] Meade [c. 1765-1833, MD Edinburgh University 1790; see Silliman 1833, 1834] of Boston, convince me how much is to be done. The advantage in this part of the science of petrifactions is, that a single tolerable specimen is frequently sufficient to place a species beyond doubt, where as with the unknown caudical remains [those relating to stems] I well remember that I for two years made nearly 30 species out of the two first mentioned in my paper. (ANSP archives, Philadelphia.)

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Fig. 2. Plate 4 from Steinhauer (1818). Figures 1-6 are of Phytolithus verrucosus. This was the fossil that was to have formed the first plate of the intended Mineral Botany project.

We learn more of Steinhauer scientific activities in America from some letters to John Le Conte (1784-1860) of New York that survive in the University of Michigan Herbarium library. Two are from botanist Lewis David von Schweinitz (1780-1834), the head of the Moravian community in America. Both are from Salem, North Carolina. The first was dated 18 November 1816, the second 15 September 1817. They mainly concern 'geologically recent' botanical matters. The third letter was from Henry Steinhauer himself and dated 24 January 1818. This too at the end deals with botanical matters and tells Le Conte of his delight in 'finding Schweinitz in Bethlehem... after 16 years separation'. He now also hopes to see his 'brother Daniel here this spring, a zealous field botanist from whose exertions I promise myself many acquisitions'. Much new light on Steinhauer's purely botanical activities in North America and his final correspondence with Zaccheus

Collins right up to the end of his short life has been shed by McKinley (1994, pp. 62-67 and 89-90). However, Steinhauer's above letter to Le Conte had opened by recording the several crises that had hit the Steinhauer family since August 1817. The first had left Henry and his wife 'childless'. In early September 1817 they were struck by their first tragedy. This is revealed in God's Acre, the Moravian cemetery at Bethlehem (which I was able to visit in 1992). The gravestone here, for Henry and Mary'sfirstchild, reads - in Quaker-like simplicity 'Henry Daniel Steinhauer, born 18 December 1816 at Bethlehem, departed 2 September 1817'. After this Henry and his wife had travelled to Philadelphia for a 'change of scene'. Here he: was seized with a remitting fever on the road which confined me for eight weeks to my room... In November I was conveyed in a close carriage [back] to Bethlehem but the

HENRY STEINHAUER AND MINERAL BOTANY

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Fig. 3. The gravestones for the Steinhauer's two children in God's Acre, the Moravian Burial Ground at Bethlehem, in 1992.

exertion had been too much for Mrs S.'s state. On the 17th she was safely delivered of a boy who survived only 3 hours, however thank God the mother recovered rapidly and is now perfectly restored . . . I am able to walk about the room and when the weather permits take the air in a carriage so that I think with Mrs S.'s good nursing, I may be kept alive till spring which I look forward to as the best doctor.

Near the first grave is this second child's gravestone. It reads 'Gambold Steinhauer, born 17 November 1817, departed 18 November 1817'. Henry's own consumption had now returned with a vengeance. His botanist brother Daniel Steinhauer (1785-1852), on hearing of his illness and these tragedies, came across the Atlantic as soon as he could to help, but, after his arrival in February 1818, there was little that could be done (although he later made a notable contribution himself to American botany; see Stuckey 1967). Then just after Henry's fossil plants paper had been published by the APS, and he had received his offprints, he too died, on 22 July 1818, of consumption at the age of only 36. His own, more corroded, gravestone reads 'Henry Steinhauer, born 28 February 1782, at Haverfordwest, South Wales, England [sicl], departed 22 July 1818'. Steinhauer's death was duly reported in a local newspaper at great length. Paulson's American Daily Advertiser (27 July 1818, p. 3) noted he had died of: pulmonary consumption, after trying in vain to recover his health by a journey to a more genial climate [i.e. America]. He was a man of profound knowledge and erudition, an honor to society and to his country. He was deeply skilled in the Natural Sciences, particularly in Botany, which was his favourite study, and in the pursuit of which he assiduously laboured.

It then printed additional notices in the form of letters from his friends. One of these is known to have been written by his fellow Moravian minister and missionary, Rev. John Heckewelder (1743-1823 - see Dictionary of American Biography hereafter DAB) to lawyer Peter S. Duponceau (1769-1844 see DAB), as the original manuscript survives (APS, Heckewelder letters, 497.3: H350, 23-30 July 1818).

Henry Steinhauer's posthumous reputation The extent of Steinhauer's influence on American science still needs to be evaluated and researched but, during his short time in America, he was certainly in contact with Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), Professor of Chemistry and Natural History at Yale University from 1802 and editor of the American Journal of Science (Wilson 1979). Silliman recorded him as the 'friend to whom in a letter I described this [New Haven] basin' (Silliman 1820). But he wrongly described Steinhauer as having been 'a missionary among the Esquimaux of Labrador', although such a mistake is understandable. In 1822 Conybeare & Phillips noted his 1818 work, as a 'very valuable but perhaps occasionally rather fanciful memoir', in their influential book on the Geology of England and Wales (1822, pp. 333-336). But they took exception to some of the attitudes Steinhauer suggested these plants had had in life. Steinhauer's fine stratigraphically arranged collection of over a 1000 choice English specimens of fossils that he had carefully taken with him to America must also have largely survived, with its

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very careful and comprehensive catalogue (ANSP MSS 358). This was the first such collection of fossils arranged according to Smithian stratigraphic methods to reach the Americas (Torrens 1990c). These 'one thousand British fossils, being the entire collection' had by 1826 passed to John Price Wetherill (1794-1853) who then deposited them in the ANSP (Morton 1831, p. 14). Ruschenberger correctly noted that it 'was made about 40 years ago [i.e. c. 1812] and is particularly rich in fossil plants, from the coal basin of Yorkshire, and in testacea and zoophytes from the lias, oolitic and cretaceous formations of various parts of Great Britain' (Ruschenberger 1852, p. 37). This collection must still survive for it is housed in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (see Spamer 1988 for an valuable initial assessment of all the so-far known Henry Steinhauer fossil plant type specimens), and after the remarkable treasures rescued there from the Etheldred Benett collection (Torrens et al. 2000) we can only hope that it can be more fully restored in the future. In 1831 Lindley & Hutton described Stigmaria ficoides Brongniart. This was the species that Steinhauer had intended to be the first species and plate to appear in Sowerby's aborted Mineral Botany, but as Phytolithus verrucosus (see Fig. 2). Lindley & Hutton noted this was 'one of the most common, if not the most common, of the fossil vegetables of the Coal Formation'. They noted that Steinhauer's 'ingenious paper' in 1818 'although erroneous in some respects, is by far the best account of the plant that has yet appeared' and duly reproduced his description (1831-1837, Vol. 1, pp. 94-103). In their second volume they added 'although we must suppose the great length assigned to the leaves by that intelligent observer to have originated in some error of observation . . . it gives us pleasure thus further to confirm the views originally taken by him, of this singular tribe of plants' (1831-1837, Vol. 2, p. xv). In 1825 Kaspar M. Sternberg (1761-1838) had renamed two of Steinhauer's species Phytolitus sulcatus and P. notatus (1818, plate 5, Fig. 1 and plate 7, Fig. 3) as Catamites steinhaueri and Rhytidolepis steinhaueri (see Kvacek & Strakova (1997, p. 142). In 1838 Henry Steinhauer was rather inappropriately honoured by the new genus Steinhaueria, with several constituent species. This was named after him by the Czech, Karl Borivoj Presl (1794-1852), but from the Miocene of Bohemia, in Sternberg (1838), see Kvacek & Strakova (1997, pp. 24, 102-103, 111 and 145-146), who designate a lectotype for the type species. In 1840 in Canada William Logan had recorded how 'no one has given a fuller account' of Stigmaria ficoides than Steinhauer's description of it in 1818, adding 'his description is so applicable

to the condition of the plant in coal strata that I shall quote a part of it' (Logan 1842, pp. 493-494). In 1876 the American J.P. Lesley considered that Steinhauer's memoir was 'of considerable importance in the history of the Geology of Pennsylvania and of the United States'. But he remained puzzled by the 'curious but an important fact; that the author never alludes to American coal measures in a memoir read . . . in the capital of the coal trade of the continent in 1817' (Lesley 1876). Why Henry Steinhauer had failed to do so should now be clear.

Henry Steinhauer and binomial nomenclature or when were fossil plants first scientifically described? In Germany Count Kaspar M. Sternberg had taken till after 1822 (when the works of Conybeare & Phillips 1822 and Rhode 1821/1822 had drawn his attention to it) to obtain a copy of Steinhauer's American 1818 publication. He then noted that 'Herr Professor [Johann Gottlieb] Rhode [1762-1827] in Breslau war der erste, der eine Klassifikation der Abdriicke unter sich nach der schon friiher von Steinhauer bemerkten Verschiedenheit derselben, zur Spache brachte'. Then in 1825 Sternberg added, as some 'supplementary information'; Heinrich Steinhauer war eigentlich der erste, der eine Entheilung der Planzenabdriicke in Vorschlag brachte. Sein Werk wurde in Teutschland erst durch die Aufnahme in die Verhandlungen der Philosophischen Gesellschaft von Philadelphia bekannt; die Originalauflage ist selbst in England ausserst selten (Sternberg 1825, pp. 27-28). (See Appendix, Quote 3).

Claudia Schweizer, who provided this information, also kindly tells me that Sternberg was from 1821 an honorary member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia so he and/or Rhode may have obtained this American Philosophical Society publication in that way. Which ever way, this should additionally remind us of the real difficulties then facing scientific communications. These would not have helped any, now postmortal, claims that Steinhauer might have had to any 'priority'. Sternberg then added his own comments in some detail on the specimens figured and described by Steinhauer in 1818 (see above). In 1828 Adolphe Theodore Brongniart (1801-1876) noted in his Histoire that Steinhauer had been among 'les noms des savans dont les travaux ont le plus contribue aux progres de cette branche de 1'histoire naturelle'. He continued:

HENRY STEINHAUER AND MINERAL BOTANY M. Steinhauer introduisit le premier [sic] dans cette branche des sciences des noms systematiques et une terminologie semblable a celle adoptee pour le reste de 1'histoire naturelle(l = Transof the American philos. Society, torn I)', mais sa classification, presque entierement conforme a celle des anciens auteurs, est encore tres-imparfaite; plus recemment, M. de Steinberg d'un cote (2 = Versuch einer Geognostich-Botanischen darstellung der flora der vorwelt, 4 fasc. fol. Leipzig, 1820-1826) et moi-meme de Fautre (3 = Sur la classification et la distribution des vegetaux fossiles, Mem. de mus. d'hist. naturelle, torn. VIII), presqu'a la meme epoque et sans avoir connaissance de nos travaux respectifs, nous cherchames a etablir de veritables divisions generiques et specifiques. (Brongniart 1828, pp. 4-5.) (See Appendix, Quote 1).

Despite this William Buckland could soon write in 1837 how: we owe to the labours of Schlotheim, Sternberg and Ad. Brongniart [only] the foundation of such a systematic arrangement of fossil plants, as enables us to enter, by means of the analogies of recent plants, into the difficult question of the Ancient Vegetation of the Earth. (Buckland 1837, Vol. 2, p. 454.)

If it is certain that Steinhauer was among the first, if not the first, to introduce systematic binomial names to palaeobotany, we have to wonder why this priority has not been maintained. It certainly was by Edward A.N. Arber (1870-1918). In his posthumous survey, Arber recorded how 'the Scientific Period [in palaeobotany] begins with the adoption of the binomial system and the foundation of systematic stratigraphy'. Henry Steinberger was quite clearly a pioneer in both. Arber next reported how Schlotheim's Beschreibung merkwurdiger KrduterAbdrilcke und Pflanzen-Versteinerungen of 1804 belonged to the prescientific period. As a result, when, in 1820, Schlotheim binomially named those plants which he had earlier described in that 1804 memoir: the interval of sixteen years [had] cost Schlotheim the honour of being actually the first to apply the binomial system to fossil plants. . . . The scientific period of fossil botany dates from the year 1818, when Steinhauer first described binomially certain British Coal Measure plants in a memoir published in America. (Arber 1921, pp. 479-480.)

This position has been more recently maintained in Germany, even more a true home of palaeobotany, by Wolfhart Langer in 1966. He then wrote: eine giiltige Nomenklatur fuhrte hier erstmals Henry Steinhauer ein, der in Bethlehem/Pennsylv. als Geistlicher wirkte. In einem Aufsatz: [Steinhauer 1818] beschrieb er Pflanzenreste aus dem englische Oberkarbon, vorwiegend aus der Gegend von Leeds. (Langer 1966, p. 34.) (See Appendix, Quote 2).

25

One can feel sure that the reason why Steinhauer's work has been so ignored lies first in the obvious obscurity of an early American work that dealt only with English fossils. But the preponderance of botanists and palaeobotanists over historians in the postal ballots organized by International Commissions on Botanical Nomenclature starting in 1950 has caused other problems. These finally decided in 1954 that the date from which priority in palaeobotany should be taken was not 'within the year 1820' as first decided in 1952 (7th International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, Stockholm 1952, p. 19 (Lanjouw 1952)) but should be from 31 December 1820 (10th International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, Edinburgh 1952, p. 13 (Lanjouw 1966)). This was so that Schlotheim's partly, non-binomial, work (Schlotheim 1804, 1820) could all be excluded. But by this decision, Steinhauer's forgotten, but wholly, binomial work, was also excluded. There have been half-hearted attempts since then to bring the starting date forward again to allow Schlotheim (1820) to once more become a valid publication in terms of its date (Daber 1970; Storch 1981, 1982; Kvacek 1982), but none for the forgotten Henry Steinhauer. It is now clearly too late to attempt any such action, but if historians had been more involved among those asked to vote in the 1950s, perhaps the end result might have been to allow both Steinhauer (1818) and Schlotheim (1820) in (despite the problem of their generic diagnoses see Kvacek & Strakova 1997, p. 5) as equally valid binomial publications. If so, we might now take 1818 as the starting date for valid binomial nomenclature throughout palaeobotany and have remained less ignorant of Henry Steinhauer's troubled, tragic and sadly short life. Any search lasting nearly 20 years for a man, even with such a geological name as 'stone hewer', born in Wales of German ancestry who died in America, is bound to incur a large numbers of debts. I owe grateful thanks to the National Science Foundation of America that granted funds to allow me to work at the ANSP. E. Spamer at the ANSP was a constant source of help and hospitality. I thank A. Armstrong (Bradford), K. Beam (Ann Arbor, MI), El. Benamy (Philadelphia, PA), F. Blandford (Chipping Sodbury), the late G. Birtill, B. Carroll (Philadelphia, PA), R. Cleevely (South Molton), R. Ehrenberg (Washington, DC), J. Halton (London), R. Hutton (Ilkley), B. Lambert (Concord, MA), W Langer (Bonn), J.A. Meade (Nova Scotia), D. McKinley (Albany), W. Mortimore (Fulneck), V. Nelson (Bethlehem, PA), A. Pacey (Ilkley), S. Pierce (Wincanton), T. Riley (Sorede, France), C. Spawn (Philadelphia, PA.), K. Stevens (Philadelphia, PA), the late J. Thackray, C. Schwiezer (Vienna) and H. Walters (Aberystwyth) for their kind help. The letter in the University of Michigan archives is quoted by kind permission. My memories of working in the wonderful Fulneck School archives to the strains of their original Snetzler organ will remain.

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Appendix Quote 1 (translation) Among the names of experts whose works have most contributed to progress in this branch of natural history and M. Steinhauer was the first to introduce systematic names into this branch of science, with a terminology like that adopted for the rest of natural history but his classification, almost entirely conforming to that of previous authors, is still very imperfect, more recently M. de Sternberg, on one hand, and myself, on the other, have at almost the same time and without knowing of each other's works, both sought to establish true generic and specific divisions.

Quote 2 (translation) Henry Steinhauer introduced a valid nomenclature here [in palaeobotany] for the first time. He worked as a priest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In his essay [Steinhauer 1818] he described plant remains from the English upper Carboniferous, predominantly from the neighbourhood of Leeds.

Quote 3 (translation) Professor Rhode in Breslau was the first to discuss a classification of [fossil plant] prints, according to the differences previously noted between them by Steinhauer and Henry Steinhauer was actually the first to suggest a classification of plant impressions. His work first became known in Germany through its appearance in the publications of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. The original edition is, even in England, extraordinarily scarce.

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SILLIMAN, B. 1833. Obituary of William Meade. American Journal of Science, 25, 215-216. SILLIMAN, B. 1834. Collection of William Meade. American Journal of Science, 26,209. SOWERBY, J., 1804-1817, British Mineralogy: or, Coloured figures intended to elucidate the mineralogy of Great Britain, Five volumes, R. Taylor and Co., London. SOWERBY , J. & SOWERBY, J., DE C. 1812-1846. The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain (seven volumes). Sowerby, London. SPAMER, E.E. 1988. Catalogue of type specimens of fossil plants in the Academy of Natural Sciences. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 140,1-17. STANSFIELD, D.A. 1984. Thomas Beddoes M.D. 1760-1808: Chemist, Physician, Democrat. Dordrecht, Reidel. STEINHAUER, H. 1804. Account of an ancient Egyptian sculpture and hieroglyphics, supposed to relate to astronomy [with a note on Mineralogy]. [William Nicholson's] Journal of Natural Philosophy, 10,4-5. STEINHAUER, H. 1806. A letter from Mr H. Steinhauer [on Astronomy by his friend Dr Okely]. [William Nicholson's] Journal of Natural Philosophy, 13, 284-285. STEINHAUER, H. 1807. Extract of a letter from Mr H. Steinhauer [on Meteorology seen in North Wales]. [William Nicholson's] Journal of Natural Philosophy, 16,237. STEINHAUER, H. 1814. Notice relative to the geology of the Coast of Labrador. Transactions of the Geological Society, London, 2,488-194. STEINHAUER H. 1818. On fossil reliquia of unknown vegetables in the coal strata. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (new series), 1, 265-297, plates 4-7. STEINHAUER, H. (ed.). 1820. The History of Greenland Including an Account of the Mission Carried on by the United Brethren in that Country . . . with a Continuation to the Present Time [by David Cranz (1723-1777)] (two volumes). Longman, London. STEPHEN, L. (ed.) 1885-1990, Dictionary of National Biography, 63 volumes, Smith Elder, London. Since this paper was written the new DNB has been published, which also see, MATTHEW, H.C.G. & HARRISON, B., (eds), 2004, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 60 volumes and online, Oxford University Press, Oxford. STERNBERG, K.M. GRAF, VON. 1825, Versuch einer Geognostisch-botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Band 1,1 (4), Ernest Brenck, Regensburg. STERNBERG, K.M. GRAF, VON. 1838. Versuch einer Geognostisch- botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Band 2. Volume II (7-8). G. Hasse Sohne, Prague. STODDARD, S. 1981. Mr Braikenridge's Brislington. City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol. STORCH, D. 1981. Der Startpunkt der Palaobotanischen Nomeklatur. Taxon, 30,209-218. STORCH, D. 1982. Ernest Friedrich von Schlotheim, seine wissenschaftshistorische Bedeutung und die palaob-

otanische Nomenklatur. Abhandlungen und Berichte des Museums derNatur Gotha, 11,23-30. STUBBLEFIELD, C.J. 1951. The Goniatites named in Martin's 'Petrificata Derbiensia, 1809'. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 12,119-124. STUCKEY, R.L. 1967. Daniel Steinhauer, early Ohio Plant Collector and his correspondence with the Botanist Schweinitz. Bartonia, 36,1-24. TORRENS, H.S. 19900. A Wiltshire Pioneer in Geology and his Legacy: Henry Shorto III (1778-1864), Cutler and Fossil Collector of Salisbury. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 83,170-189. TORRENS, H.S. 1990£. The four Bath Philosophical Societies 1779-1959. In: ROLLS, R. & GUY, J.R. (eds) A Pox on the Provinces. Bath University Press, Bath, 180-188. TORRENS, H.S. 1990c. The transmission of ideas in the use of fossils in stratigraphic analysis from England to America 1800-1840. Earth Sciences History, 9, 108-117. TORRENS, H.S. 2001. Timeless order - the 2000 William Smith lecture. In: LEWIS, C.L.E. & KNELL, S.J. (eds) The Age of the Earth from 4004 EC to 2002 AD. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 190,61-83. TORRENS, H.S. 2002. The Practice of British Geology 1750-1850. Ashgate, Aldershot. TORRENS, H.S. & WINSTON I.E. 2002. Eliza Catherine Jelly 28 September 1829-3 November 1914: pioneer female bryozoologist. In: WYSE JACKSON, P.N. & SPENCER JONES, M.E. (eds) Annals ofBryozoology. International Bryozoology Association, Dublin, 299-325. TORRENS, H.S., BENAMY, E., DAESCHLER, E.B., SPAMER, E. & BOGAN, A.E. 2000. Etheldred Benett of Wiltshire, England, thefirstlady geologist - her fossil collection in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the rediscovery of 'lost' specimens of Jurassic Trigoniidae (Mollusca, Bivalvia) with their soft anatomy preserved. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 150,59-123. VAUGHAN, H.M. 1931. From Anne to Victoria: Fourteen Biographical Studies Between 1702 and 1901 [including John Gambold (1711-1771)]. Methuen & Co., London. WALTON, J. 1959. Palaeobotany in Great Britain, pp. 230-244 In: TURRILL, W.B. (ed.) Vistas in Botany, Volume 1. Pergamon Press, London. WARNER, R. 1811. A New Guide Through Bath and Its Environs. Cruttwell, Bath. WATSON, W. 1811. A Delineation of the Strata of Derbyshire. Todd, Sheffield. WAUGH, W.T. 1909. A History ofFulneck School. Jackson, Leeds. WILKINSON, C.H. 1811. Analytical Researches into the Properties of the Bath Waters. Wood & Cunningham, Bath. WILSON, L. (ed.). 1979. Benjamin Silliman and his Circle. Science History Publications, New York. WITHAM, H. 1831. Observations on Fossil Vegetables. Blackwood, Edinburgh. WOODWARD, H.B. 1907. The History of the Geological Society of London. Geological Society, London.

John Lindley: the reluctant palaeobotanist WILLIAM G. CHALONER1 & HUGH L. PEARSON2 1

Geology Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX, UK 2 Claydon High School, Church Lane, Claydon, Ipswich, Suffolk IP6 OEG, UK Abstract: John Lindley (1799-1865) is best known among palaeobotanists for having written, together with William Hutton, the three volumes of The Fossil Flora of Great Britain (1831-1837; published by James Ridgeway, London). He only published three other works on fossil plants, two short appendices on European Tertiary material and a list of fossil plants from the Culm of Devon. The Fossil Flora served to catalogue many of the fossil plants recognized by the 1830s from Britain, ranging in age from Carboniferous to Pleistocene. Together with contributions from Henslow, Murray and Williamson, Lindley and Hutton described, illustrated and, in some cases, emended almost 300 species, with many of their type and figured specimens having survived. By giving the first illustrated account of the microscopic structure of a fossil cuticle together with discussions about the origin of coal, prehistoric climates, experimental taphonomy and plant evolution The Fossil Flora was much more than a catalogue of fossil plants. Although orchidology, his work at University College London and numerous other activities came to fill his time after finishing The Fossil Flora, John Lindley must surely rank amongst his palaeobotanical contemporaries for having pioneered aspects of the science that remain topics of active research into the third millennium.

John Lindley has been described as 'a man endowed with an extraordinary capacity for work and a restless aggressive untiring intellect, who attained distinction in all his activities. Lindley was among the most industrious, many-sided and productive of nineteenth-century botanists' (Stearn 1999&). As Steam records there, 'Lindley as administrator, professor, horticulturalist, taxonomist, editor, journalist and botanical artist used to the full his time, his abundant energy and his remarkable talents, with lasting beneficial results in many fields of botany and horticulture. Orchids were, however, his great botanical love'. Indeed, palaeobotany really formed only a minor part of the output of this remarkable and versatile man. Stearn has given a very full account of Lindley's life (Stearn 1999&), and other aspects of his diverse botanical work are covered by other authors in the volume celebrating the bicentenary of Lindley's birth, edited by Stearn (Stearn 1999a). We accordingly concentrate in this paper on his palaeobotanical work alone, and particularly on The Fossil Flora of Great Britain that he wrote jointly with William Hutton, a geologist from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Writing of The Fossil Flora Lindley had been appointed to the Chair of Botany at University College London (then the 'University of London') in 1828. A major part of his responsibilities there was the teaching of botanical systematics to medical students, that they might be able to identify drug-yielding plants, the prime source of medication at that time. Shortly after his appointment to the Chair he published a note (Lindley 1829) on a

flora of Eocene age associated with lignite deposits at Fuveau near Aix-en-Provence, France. This was an appendix to a memoir by Murchison & Lyell (1829). Lindley's note consisted of a plate illustrating the plant macrofossils, with brief descriptions. Of the eight plants on which he offers notes, he assigns four to extant genera (Podocarpus, Thuja, Laurus and Buxus) and offers possible species assignments, or the names of similar living species, cited with a query. He then remarks that these species now have widely separated occurrences, in India (Podocarpus macrophylla, Laurus dulcis), Buxus balearica of the Mediterranean and Thuja articulata from North Africa. According to Mitchell (1972) P. macrophylla is a Chinese species, which makes Lindley's French Eocene flora even more eclectic than he suggests. But Lindley seems to have found nothing especially worthy of comment in this biogeographic diversity of the living equivalents of his fossils. In 1835, with the publication of The Fossil Flora already well under way (Volume II was completed that year), Lindley published a further note on some Miocene fossil leaves. This was, again, included as a note (pp. 288 and 289) within a paper by Murchison (1835), on a fossil fox found in the same formation, the Miocene freshwater deposits at Oeningen, Switzerland, close to the Bodensee. As with the Eocene fossils, Lindley suggests assignment of the leaf fossils to three extant genera, Fraxinus, Populus and Acer. The Oeningen Miocene flora later came to receive much attention from several continental palaeobotanists, most notably Oswald Heer (1855-1859). In 1834 De la Beche read a paper to the Geological

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,29-39.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

30

W.G. CHALONER & H.L. PEARSON

Society of London, claiming to have found plant fossils of Coal Measures type in the 'Grauwacke' (equivalent to the Silurian of later usage). These plants had been identified by Lindley, although Lindley's list of names was not published until six years later. (Lindley in Sedgwick & Murchison (1840, pp. 681-683); in this work Lindley, of course, makes reference to the species concerned cited in The Fossil Flora.) The plants are, indeed, of characteristic Coal Measure types, including species of Asterophyllites, Calamites, Neuropteris and Pecopteris. Following De la Beche's paper (De la Beche 1834), a controversy ensued that lasted for several years concerning the age of the Culm Measures of Devon, a group that included the rocks from which De la Beche's plant fossils had come. This controversy is well covered in McCartney (1977) and Hallam (1989). Arber (1905) later reviewed and revised Lindley's determinations, illustrating many of the specimens, and confirmed the Westphalian (Upper Carboniferous, Pennsylvanian) age of the rocks containing them. Lindley's collaboration with Murchison (President of the Geological Society, and a geologist of great renown), which had apparently started with the French Eocene fossils in 1829, was to be an important element in Lindley's involvement with The Fossil Flora. Newman & Chatt-Ramsey (1988) suggest that the start of The Fossil Flora lay in a letter of July 1829 from Murchison to William Hutton, a geologist with great interest in the Carboniferous and, particularly, Coal Measure plants. Murchison reports in that letter that Lindley (already seen as a botanist of some standing) had been approached, and 'was willing to help'. Murchison's role in the launching of the enterprise is made clear in the dedication of the first volume to him, with the citation that the work 'owes its origin to his suggestion, and its existence to his support'. Lindley wrote to Hutton in that same year, 'when I consider how new the study of fossil botany is, how small the number of subjects is known, and how imperfect our knowledge of every one of these subjects is, I feel confident that we shall succeed in producing something which will be both instructive to readers and useful to science'. In the Introduction to the first volume, the authors write that for geologists 'overcoming the difficulties that offer themselves to a strict examination of fossil vegetable remains has come to be an object of indispensable necessity'. This was clearly a prime objective in writing The Fossil Flora. The geological fraternity was to be educated palaeobotanically - this was a kind of botanical noblesse oblige for the new Professor of Botany of London University. It seems that Hutton as the geologist was to be primarily responsible for obtaining the fossil material a field in which he already had considerable experi-

ence - while Lindley would describe and interpret the fossils. Hutton had an added role in gathering the names of sponsors, to assure the publishers of an adequate readership. For Lindley was able to write to Hutton in April 1831 that 'the first part of the Fossil Flora will appear on 1st. of July. The assurance that you have an hundred names upon your list has overcome the scruples of the Booksellers' (Chaloner 1999). 'An hundred' turned out to be an underestimate as the number of sponsors reached 121 in time for Volume I in 1831, with 27 more cited in Volume II in 1833. Most of them were individuals and institutions in Britain, but one was from Bonn, and more remarkably, one Captain W. Sage of the 48th Regiment in Bengal! (Lindley & Hutton 1831, pp. liii-lix, 1833, p. iii). Howse (1890) in his account of the history of the Hutton Collection writes that 'it seems to have been agreed that Mr Hutton should collect the specimens and have drawings made from them; and that these drawings should be sent to London, with the specimens occasionally, and any remarks that Mr. Hutton wished to make along with them'. The artists employed were Thomas Abel Prior and one Johnson (Newman & Chatt-Ramsey 1988), with other plates based on illustrations by William Crawford Williamson, C. Conway, Professor John Stevens Henslow, James de Carle Sowerby, Professor John Phillips and, notably, Miss Sarah Anne Drake, whom Stearn (1999Z?) described as 'John Lindley's principal botanical artist from 1832 to 1847'. This strategy seems to have been generally followed, so that in a number of cases Lindley saw only the drawing, and never actually examined the fossil himself. In the case of the Yorkshire Jurassic specimens (nearly a quarter of all the fossils described in the flora) most of these were drawn in Scarborough by the young W.C. Williamson (1816-1895) (later to become an outstanding palaeobotanist in his own right) and in some cases his descriptions, as well as his drawings, appear in The Fossil Flora. As Newman & Chatt-Ramsey (1988) remarked, not having seen certain of the described specimens resulted in some difficulties for Lindley and Hutton. So, for example, regarding the Jurassic bennettite that they called Taeniopteris vittata, first described by them from Gristhorpe, Yorkshire in 1833, Lindley & Hutton (1835, plate 176B) made the following confession about an apparently conspecific fossil from Stonesfield, Oxfordshire: This is apparently the very specimen figured by Steinberg, and upon which the species is founded. Is it really the same as the plant from the shale of the Gristhorpe bed, and already figured vol. 1. tab. 62. of this work ? We suspect not; We have, however, no positive means of judging . . . A further examination of the Stonesfield slate will alone decide the point'.

JOHN LINDLEY: RELUCTANT PALAEOBOTANIST

The contents of The Fossil Flora The Fossil Flora was to appear on a more or less quarterly basis in separate parts each of about 10 plates, and was then subsequently grouped into the three volumes in which it is normally bound. Each volume then came out over a period of 2 years, Volume 1, 1831-1833, Volume 2, 1833-1835 and Volume 3, 1835-1837. The dates of publication (sought out with characteristic perseverance and care by William Steam) are given in Chaloner 1999. The Fossil Flora includes some 230 plates, illustrating 200 species of fossil plants. More than half of them are Upper Carboniferous, mainly from the Newcastle area, along with specimens from other named English, Welsh and Scottish coal-mining areas. Nearly a quarter of the species dealt with are from the Middle Jurassic of Yorkshire; many of these were collected in the vicinity of Scarborough by W.C. Williamson, who was later to encounter Lindley when he embarked on a medical degree at University College (Williamson 1896). The remainder include various Scottish Lower Carboniferous plants and individual specimens from the Permian Magnesian Limestone. In addition to the Yorkshire Jurassic specimens, The Fossil Flora also includes a few plants from the New Red Sandstone, further Jurassic specimens from Dorset and the English Midlands, plus some Lower Cretaceous material from the Isle of Wight. Some other plant fossils that Lindley believed to be Cretaceous, viz. plates 125 and 226A of Pityostrobus macrocephalus (L. & H.) Seward are now regarded as of Palaeogene age. Apart from the small number of Recent plants (e.g. plate 127 of extant conifers) that were included for comparative purposes, the only acknowledged Cainozoic plants in The Fossil Flora are a supposedly Tertiary pine cone from Spain and a pair of Middle Pleistocene conifer cone fragments from Norfolk. The Fossil Flora includes at least one doubtful fossil animal, a Carboniferous specimen that they interpreted as a fungus, Polyporites bowmanni (Lindley & Hutton 1835, plate 65). As Lindley and Hutton themselves concede, this fossil may well have been a fossil fish or reptile scale; or possibly even a bivalve (lamellibranch or brachiopod); see Dennis (1969). Many of the specimens figured in The Fossil Flora are preserved in the Hancock Museum in Newcastle, and a very comprehensive catalogue of them is given in Newman & Chatt-Ramsey (1988). They also catalogue those specimens illustrated in The Fossil Flora that are housed in a number of other museums, most particularly the Jurassic plants collected by W.C. Williamson, many of which are now in Scarborough Museum. Others are in the University Museum, Oxford, the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge and the Natural History Museum, London. The Jurassic

31

specimens in Scarborough may, indeed, never have made the journey to London, and never been seen by Lindley. The specimens of Stenopteris williamsonis (Brongniart) Harris figured in plate 131, Volume II, of The Fossil Flora, and now in the Scarborough Museum, were drawn by W.C. Williamson, who then sent the drawings to Lindley who wrote the text discussing its affinity, which appears in The Fossil Flora (pp. 139 and 140). As Lindley writes, 'the drawings were communicated by our indefatigable correspondent Mr. Williamson Jnr.' with the specimens presumably remaining in Yorkshire. The quality of the drawings came under criticism from Kidston (1891) who wrote in his review of the Carboniferous fossils dealt with in The Fossil Flora that 'the point where Lindley and Hutton's fossil flora breaks down under critical examination is the inaccuracy of the plates; and this charge cannot be brought, but in a slight degree, against their contemporary workers. It is a point difficult to excuse, and has led to much confusion'. While this is undoubtedly true in some degree, we are fortunate that so much of the type material has been conserved, in the several museum collections mentioned above, with a clear link to the original figures through sound curating. The existence of the type material, where it exists, reduces our dependence on the quality of the original drawings for our concepts of the species described by Lindley and Hutton. In addition to the plates and descriptions, we have in The Fossil Flora a Preface to each of the three volumes, in which the authors discuss some general problems concerning what we would now call evolutionary change, on the nature of coal seams and their formation, and on the relative proportions of different plant groups in the Carboniferous as an indication of climate. As these throw more light on Lindley and Hutton's thoughts about several important palaeobotanical issues than their descriptions of the individual species, we consider them further below.

Evolution and environmental change Probably the greatest problem that confronted Lindley and Hutton in offering an interpretation of the diversity of fossil plants that they observed was their rejection of any idea of evolutionary change through geological time. As Albert Long remarked with characteristic forthrightness (quoted in Andrews 1980, p. 83), 'Lindley knew only extant plants, and his knowledge was almost an encumbrance impeding the correct interpretation of the fossils'. In Volume III of The Fossil Flora (1837, pp. 136-37) the authors discuss whether dicotyledons (angiosperms) 'would be found in beds below the Chalk'. They conclude that 'for ourselves we are persuaded that geology offers no ground for assuming

32

W.G. CHALONER & H.L. PEARSON

the exclusion of Dicotyledons from the primitive flora; on the contrary, nothing opposed to the present design of the creation has yet been seen in any part of the flora of even the most remote periods'. Indeed, in the Preface to Volume 1 (1833), where the authors had been discussing the evidence for plants living in the past at high latitudes, they write (p. xvii): 'Of a still more questionable character is the theory of progressive development [meaning essentially, evolution], as applied to the state of vegetation in successive ages. The opinion, that in the beginning, only the most simple animals and plants were created, and that in succeeding periods, a gradual advance took place in their degree of organization, till it was closed by the final creation of warm blooded animals, on the one hand, and of Dicotyledonous Trees on the other, is one that very generally prevails. How far this may be admissible in the animal world, it is for Zoologists to determine; but in the Vegetable Kingdom, it cannot be conceded that any satisfactory evidence has yet been produced upon the subject'.

Yet, they seem to accept the idea that the animal fossil evidence points to major changes through the course of geological time. They write in Volume 1 (p. ix) that 'long anterior to the creation of man, this world was inhabited by races of animals, to which no parallels are now to be found'. So for the authors of The Fossil Flora, it seems that while evolutionary change may have taken place in the animal kingdom, plants had remained substantially unchanged through geological time. Yet, there are odd contradictions to this theme. In the Preface to Volume 1 (p. xi) they write that: 'in the New Red Sandstone formation, the characters of vegetation appear to be altered by the disappearance of the gigantic Cactaceae or Euphorbiaceae, by a diminution in the proportion of ferns, and by the appearance of a few new tribes'. It is not really clear whether this implied that such new tribes had appeared from elsewhere at that time, or whether they were referring to their arising de novo, as it were. Similarly they say, on the same page, 'in the Lias and Oolite formations, an entirely new race of plants covered the earth . . . Coniferous plants [which for Lindley and Hutton were, a little confusingly regarded as flowering plants] were still plentiful, but they were of species which did not exist in an earlier period'. By p. xiv in the same volume, they consider the idea that there might have been a time before the grasses had existed, and interpret the problem in rather teleological terms: 'It may, indeed, be conjectured, that before the creation of herbivorous animals, Grasses and Sedges were not required, and, therefore, are not to be expected in any beds below the [Jurassic] Forest Marble, and Stonesfield Slate; it is difficult to conceive how the animals of the upper Tertiary beds could have been fed, if Grasses had not then been present'. This sug-

gests that despite what had been said previously, Lindley and Hutton consider that the grasses did not appear in the geological record until some time between the mid-Jurassic and the Tertiary. Despite these rather contradictory suggestions of an unchanging botanical world, the authors of The Fossil Flora have interesting ideas on changes in atmospheric composition. In the same Preface to Volume I (p. vi) they write: 'the probable condition of the atmosphere at the most remote periods - what gradual changes that climate may have undergone since living things first began to exist whether there have been, from the commencement, a progressive development of their organization - all these are questions which it is either the peculiar province of the Botanist to determine, or which his enquiries must, at least, tend very much to elucidate'.

But, sadly, at the end of the three volumes no particular elucidation of these problems is offered.

Differential preservation; an experiment in taphonomy In his 'Prodrome', Brongniart (1828) had suggested that the ratio of ferns and fern-allies ('Cellulaires' or flowerless plants of Lindley & Hutton 1833, pp. xlvi-li) to seed plants ('Vasculaires or flowering plants', Lindley & Hutton 1833, pp. xxxvii-xlvi) was a reflection of the climate under which any particular fossil flora had grown. Modern floras of warm, humid environments had a higher proportion of ferns than those of cooler, drier habitats. The fern to phanerogam (seed plant) ratio was at its highest in tropical oceanic islands (as illustrated by the West Indies and St. Helena). Brongniart believed that the composition of the European Carboniferous floras reflected a warmer and more humid climate than that of the present day in those areas. This, and the problems associated with the fact that many 'ferns' of the Carboniferous were subsequently shown to be seed plants, is discussed in Chaloner (1999). But Lindley had another interest in the interpretation of the composition of Carboniferous floras. As he conceived the Carboniferous flora as substantially drawn from the same range of plants as are present in the modern flora, he was anxious to explain the obvious differences as a result of selective preservation of certain types of plants against others. In other words, he wished to demonstrate that 'taphonomic bias' was a major factor in the kinds of plants that we now see fossilized in Carboniferous rocks. Lindley states his case clearly in the Preface to Volume III (p. 4) in saying 'I was led to suspect that possibly the total absence of certain kinds of plants, the as constant presence of others . . . might be accounted for by a difference in the capability of one plant beyond

JOHN LINDLEY: RELUCTANT PALAEOBOTANIST

another of resisting the action of water'. Contemporary taphonomists (e.g. Hemsley 2001) might refer to the differences in terms of resistance to the action of microbial biodegradation of the plant material, rather than the action of water per se. But Lindley's underlying idea was an important and fundamental one. Lindley set up an experiment which ran from 21 March 1833 to 22 April 1835, in which he placed 177 species of plants in an iron tank of water that was topped up over 2 years, at the end of which time he attempted to ascertain which had survived in a recognizable state. Figure 1 shows the table that they drew up summarizing the results of that experiment (Lindley & Hutton 1835, p. 11). Conifers and cycads seemed to survive the immersion best, while dicotyledons 'in general are unable to remain for two years in water without being totally decomposed'. This seems to have encouraged Lindley in his belief that the absence of dicotyledons in the Carboniferous flora was a preservational effect rather than a result of their not being present in the contemporaneous flora. On the interpretation of climate from the ratio of ferns to other plants, he wrote in Volume III (Lindley & Hutton 1837, p. 12) that 'the numerical proportion of different families of plants found in a fossil state throws no light whatever upon the ancient climate of the earth

Fossil cuticles Lindley & Hutton (1835, 105-109, fig. 121) were the first to describe the preparation of fossil cuticles from a plant compression fossil using nitric acid maceration, and to illustrate its microscopic structure (Chaloner 1999). However, at this point it is appropriate to note the involvement of Dr Peter Murray of Scarborough in the story. Prior to the publication of The Fossil Flora, Murray (1828) had already produced an illustrated account of some Jurassic plants collected at Gristhorpe Bay, near Scarborough, and had compared them to several extant genera of ferns and Equisetum. The quality of the drawings by Baynes and the engravings by E. Mitchell makes it clear that they are recognizable species of Jurassic plants described in later work (see, for example, Van Konijnenburg-Van Cittert & Morgans 1999). Murray (1828) records that: 'The vegetable nature of these curious impressions is remarkably shown by the scarcely fossilized state of one of the varieties, apparently a fern allied to the genus Isoetes, which when detached from the embedding stony mass, still retains elasticity and flexibility, and burns like a piece of charred wood. Others yet preserve, even in their clay bed, much of their original colour, a dull red resembling that of some fuci; and portions of such leaflets may be peeled

33

away... and are actually semi-transparent and striated, and afford most curious and pleasing objects for a microscope'.

In his account of modes of preservation of plants as fossils, Seward (1898, p. 87) quoted from an unpublished letter from Murray to Hutton, written in 1833 and preserved at Durham: 'Reverting to the Oolitic plants, I have again and with better success been experimenting upon the thin transparent films of leaves, chiefly of Taeniopteris vittata [now Nilssoniopteris vittata (Brongniart) Florin] and Cyclopteris [probably C. digitata Brongniart, later regarded as a species of Ginkgo by Harris and others] which from their tenacity offer fine objects for the microscope'. But although Murray evidently looked at these fossil plant cuticles, occurring in varying degree in what may be called a naturally macerated state, he did not himself attempt any acid maceration of his fossils to enhance their quality as microscopic objects. Lindley and Hutton open their account of Solenites murrayana with a note from Murray, who had collected the fossil and sent it to them: The plant now sent is from the rich deposit of Gristhorpe Bay, near Scarborough, occurring in the shale of the upper sandstone, belonging to the Oolitic formation; and is so slightly mineralized as to retain flexibility and even in a certain degree combustibility [Murray's italics]. The plant appears to me, most analogous to a Fern, and to the genus Isoetes ... Still it can hardly be our Isoetes lacustris.'

Lindley and Hutton go on to describe their maceration of Murray' s material: 'Considering, however, their flexible state, it occurred to us that if it were possible to separate the tissue from the carbonaceous matter . . . the transparency of the specimens might be restored and some insight obtained into their anatomical structure. Accordingly, upon plunging them into boiling nitric acid, in a few moments a dark crust peeled away in flakes, and presently the centre part became amber coloured and transparent; when washed and placed beneath a microscope it was found t h a t . . . the parts were become little less conspicuous than in a fresh specimen . . . and the sides [i.e. the two cuticles] were evidently composed of prismatical cellular tissue....'

In this description and in their illustration of the cellular detail seen on the cuticle (plate 121, fig. E) Lindley and Hutton may fairly be said to have produced by acid maceration and illustrated the first preparation of a fossil cuticle. Lindley and Hutton realized that the bubbles seen in the cuticular tube of their fossil were gas-filled cavities rather than the series of air chambers seen in the living Isoetes leaf. But they suggest that 'the manner in which air collects in the fossil after having been acted upon by the acid, (may) be thought to indicate the existence of transverse partitions'. They

W.G. CHALONER & H.L. PEARSON

34

General Result oftJie preceding Experiment, Number of Recognizable Species submitted to afterwards. experiment.

ACOTYLEDONES.

Fungi

.

.

.

3 3 1

. . .

. .

. .

6 6 1

,

Lichenes . Hepaticse . Musci . Filices . Lycopodiaceee Equisetaceas

3 0

10

22

DlCOTYIEDONES APETAL^.

3 1 6 0 0 2 12

2 13 4 7

2 16 8 12

Cycadeae . . Coniferse . Amcntacese Miscellaneous *

0

0 0 6 1 0

2

Total

Not to bo traced.

0 3 4 5

Total

38

26

12

DlCOTYLEDONES PoLYPETALJE

45

2

43

DlCOTYLEDONES MoNOPETALJH

41

6

35

MoNOCOTYLEDONES.

0 19

1 11

1 30

Palmsc . Miscellaneous . Total

31

12

19

Total

177

56

121

Fig. 1. The table published in Volume III of The Fossil Flora showing the results of Lindley's experiment in differential preservation of different plant groups. He had placed 177 species of plants (left-hand column) in an iron tank that was kept topped up with water over a period of 2 years, after which he sought to determine which had survived in a recognizable state (middle column) or were simply not to be found at all (right-hand column). One feature of his results that was particularly striking was the poor survival rate of the bulk of what would now be regarded as dicotyledonous angiosperms (his Dicotyledones Polypetalae and Monopetalae) compared with that of the cycads, conifers and monocotyledons.

JOHN LINDLEY: RELUCTANT PALAEOBOTANIST

argue 'supposing that this fossil is admitted as more nearly allied to Isoetes and Pilularia, than to anything else now known . . . it must nevertheless be remarked, that it was distinct as to species at least'. They go on to say that 'We therefore distinguish it as a peculiar genus, for which the name Solenites has been suggested, by its fistular structure. Dr. Murray is fully entitled to have it bear his name in addition [as Solenites murrayana], in commemoration of his having been both the discoverer of the fossil, and the determiner of its affinity'. Harris et al. (1974) later transferred Solenites to a group of Mesozoic gymnosperms, the Czekanowskiales, on the basis of its obvious similarity to the leaves of the genus Czekanowskia, of which he demonstrated the gymnospermous reproductive structures. He also reverted to the epithet vimineus used by Phillips as Flabellaria ? viminea, which was apparently regarded by Lindley and Hutton as a synonym of their newly described fossil; indeed, it is a little odd that they offered a new specific epithet for it, since they treated Phillips' species as a synonym under Solenites murrayana on p. 105 of The Fossil Flora. But, of course, the concept of nomenclatural priority was not always strictly followed before the advent of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. So that, although the epithet murrayana was lost from Solenites, Lindley and Hutton had been fully justified in honouring Murray in that way, for having led them to see in such material the potential for microscopic examination and the observation of cellular detail in coalified material. Many years were to elapse before Lindley and Hutton's maceration technique came to be applied in studying similar fossil plants. They seem never to have attempted cuticle preparations of any of the other Yorkshire plants, later shown by Nathorst, Halle, Hamshaw Thomas, Harris and many others some 70 years later, to yield excellent cuticle material on maceration (see Andrews 1980).

Lindley tires of palaeobotany Even while the second volume of The Fossil Flora was in preparation, Lindley wrote to Hutton in November 1833: 'I am now in want of materials for the next number of the F.F. and shall be glad of any you may have to send'. So although there were at that time only some 80 species described in The Fossil Flora, there was no suggestion of a large number of specimens awaiting investigation and description. A gentle sense of urgency in the production line continued; in November 1834 he wrote to Hutton: 'I have again got notice from the engraver that the plates for the next number of the Fossil Flora must be put in hand immediately because of the vicinity of Xmas, when the workmen fall behind, are lazy and feasting'.

35

As the second volume neared completion, Lindley seems to have been feeling the strain of the production, in the face of his many other activities. He wrote to Hutton in December 1835: 'I am sorry to say that it is becoming so much more difficult than ever for me to pay the necessary attention to the work [on The Fossil Flora] that I shall be compelled to give up my share of it after the next number which will complete the second volume'. Despite these misgivings, Lindley continued gamely with the enterprise, and saw the three volumes completed by July 1837. There is a sense at this point that Lindley was growing tired of palaeobotany, rather than that he felt the compilation of a fossil flora of Britain was in any sense completed. British Tertiary plants had in particular only a very trivial place in the volumes that had appeared. Yet, it was only 3 years later that James Bowerbank (1840) was to publish his account of the pyritized fruit and seeds of the Eocene London Clay, illustrated by 17 plates, and the existence of this material must surely have been known to Lindley. But in June of 1837 Lindley wrote to Hutton: 'I have at last put an end to Fossil Flora by completing volume III ... I am drudging at the index just now'. By July of that year, his feeling about The Fossil Flora were evidently resolved, for he wrote of it to Hutton: 'I have fairly washed my hands of it; and so resolved am I to keep my resolution of discontinuing the subject that I have sent away everything that I possessed in illustration . . . I shall sell my books relating to the subject and you may have them if you like at your own price'. W.C. Williamson, in his own memoirs (Williamson 1896), gives a rather different picture of the closure of The Fossil Flora production. He writes, '. . . the issue [of the quarterly parts of The Fossil Flora] ceased, because, as Mr Lindley himself told me, the geologists did not give the work that financial support which he had hoped, whilst he as a botanist did not feel called upon to spend his money upon a publication that, after all, was mainly a geological one'. In hindsight it seems a little odd that Lindley should have come to regard that compilation of descriptions and illustrations of fossil plants as being essentially geological in nature, rather than botanical. But perhaps his remarks to Williamson were made some years after the abandonment of The Fossil Flora project, when he had come to see the whole thing in a rather different light from that of his July 1837 letter to his geological colleague Hutton. Lindley's production in other areas of botany continued unabated; in the year following the publication of the final part of The Fossil Flora, Lindley published five botanical works of note, not least his Flora medica 'a botanical account of all the more important plants used in medicine in different parts of the world' (Steam \999b).

36

W.G. CHALONER & H.L. PEARSON

Fig. 2. John Lindley aged 40, a lithograph made some 2 years after the completion of The Fossil Flora. Reproduced by kind permission of the Royal Horticultural Society, Lindley Library.

It seems that with the folding of The Fossil Flora a number of illustrations and, in some cases, notes were left, which were later brought together by G. A. Lebour and published in 1877, 12 years after Lindley's death. This work was entitled Illustrations of Fossil Plants; An Autotype Reproduction of Selected Drawings Prepared Under the Direction of Dr Lindley and W. Hutton between 1835 and 1840. Presumably Lindley was not closely involved in the selection after 1837! This work of Lebour's has received little attention in later palaeobotanical literature, and it goes unmentioned in Andrews' (1980) history of palaeobotany. The drawings were found, according to Lebour, 'among a large collections of drawings and papers which had belonged to the late William Hutton'. Perhaps these included the items that Lindley had referred to in saying that he had 'sent away' everything that he possessed in illustration, in the letter cited above. In any event, it is pretty clear why at least some of the illustrations in Lebour were not used in The Fossil Flora. Plate XLIV, identified only with a question mark, has Lebour's note

on it 'another very vague specimen which Lindley declined to name, his memorandum respecting it being "too imperfect"' (Lebour 1877).

The assessment of posterity Andrews (1980) in his history of palaeobotany records fairly that The Fossil Flora 'has been variously maligned by later workers', but adds charitably that 'I am inclined to think that, in the context of the times, it deserves somewhat better treatment'. The Cambridge palaeobotanist Newell Arber (1921) wrote 'it unfortunately remains to this day the one illustrated British book containing a general account of our Coal Measure plants'. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Arber criticized it for, among other things, the lack of exact locality data; Kidston (1891) was more concerned with the inaccuracy of the drawings, as noted earlier in this paper. Seward (1898) offered the rather obtuse praise that 'if we look back through a few decades and peruse the

JOHN LINDLEY: RELUCTANT PALAEOBOTANIST

37

Fig. 3. John Lindley, a drawing by one of his daughters, c. 1845. He is reading galley proofs of the Gardeners' Chronicle. Reproduced by permission of the British Columbia Archives, #PDP4736.

pages of Lindley and Hutton's classic work on the Fossil Flora of Great Britain, a book which is indispensable to fossil botanists,... and finally take stock of our present knowledge . . . we realise what enormous progress has been made in palaeobotanical studies'. In closing it might be noted that, despite this criticism of The Fossil Flora, Lindley was honoured in the names given to various fossil plants by a number of later 19th and 20th century palaeobotanists. Witham (1833) described Pence lindleiana (reassigned by Hartig (1848) to Tiloxylon, and by Stopes (1916) to Planoxylon), while Hartig (1848) named another German Tertiary wood for Lindley as

Closteroxylon lindleyanum Hartig. Steinberg (1838) described Pecopteris lindleyana and Schimper (1869) named two Liassic plants for Lindley, a ginkgoalean leaf, Jeanpaulia lindleyana, and a conifer, Trichopitys lindleyana. Saporta (1862) reassigned the French Tertiary Podocarpus from Fuveau near Aix, figured by Lindley in Murchison & Lyell (1829), to P. lindleyana. As mentioned earlier in this paper, Lindley had compared the fossil to the living P. macrophylla, and apparently Saporta's reassignment was expressly to avoid attributing that Eocene fossil to an extant species. Finally, Carruthers (1872) named a Carboniferous seed Cardiocarpon lindleyi (later reassigned to Cordaitanthus).

38

W.G. CHALONER & H.L. PEARSON

Very much later, Harris (1979) made a new genus, Lindleycladus, based on Zamia lanceolata described in Lindley & Hutton from the Yorkshire Jurassic. Harris reassigned that fossil, interpreting the pinnae attached to the rachis as seen by Lindley and Hutton as individual leaves of a conifer, which he assigned to the Podozamitaceae. Ironically, the fossil was probably never handled by Lindley himself, as the figure and description given in The Fossil Flora were produced by W.C. Williamson in Scarborough and sent to Lindley in London, who, of course, acknowledged the source of the description and figure. It is easy for those of us living in a later age to look back on these early 19th century pioneers, and to draw attention to their shortcomings and mistakes rather than the foundations that they laid for later progress. While Lindley and Hutton's systematic assignment of some of their fossils may now fairly be called to question in the light of later knowledge, what is far more important is their perception of the problems that were to be the substance of future palaeobotanical research. Their thoughts on changes in world climate, on the composition of the atmosphere, the nature and origin of coal, their pioneer experiment in differential preservation and their development of the maceration technique for fossil cuticles - all these touch on issues that are still very alive in contemporary palaeobotany. Lindley & Hutton's Fossil Flora deserves recognition for those elements, despite any shortcomings it may have had as a purely systematic compilation.

References ANDREWS, H.N. 1980. The Fossil Hunters. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. ARBER, E.A.N. 1905. The fossil flora of the Culm Measures of north-west Devon, and the palaeobotanical evidence with regard to the age of the beds. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 6197,291-325. ARBER, E.A.N. 1921. A sketch of the history of palaeobotany. In: SINGER, C. (ed.) Studies in the History and Method of Science, Volume 2 Clarenden Press, Oxford, 412-489. BOWERBANK, J.S. 1840. A History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay. John Van Voorst, London. BRONGNIART, A. 1828. Prodrome d'une histoire des vegetaux fossiles. Dictionaire des Sciences Naturelles, 57, 16-212. CARRUTHERS, W. 1872. Notes on fossil plants. Geological Magazine, 9,55. CHALONER, W.G. 1999. Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora of Great Britain. In: STEARN, W.T. (ed.) John Lindley 1799-1865. Antique Collectors Club in association with the Royal Horticultural Society, Woodbridge Suffolk, 160-174. DE LA BECHE, H.T. 1834. On the anthracite found near

Bideford in North Devon. In: Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, 2,136. (Title only.) DENNIS, R.L. 1969. Fossil mycelium with clamp connections, from the Middle Pennsylvanian. Science, 163, 670-671. HALLAM, A. 1989. Great Geological Controversies, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford. HARRIS, T.M. 1979. The Yorkshire Jurassic Flora 5: Coniferales. British Museum (Natural History), London. HARRIS, T.M. MILLINGTON, W. & MILLER, J. 1974. The Yorkshire Jurassic Flora 4: I, Ginkgoales, 2, Czekanowskiales. British Museum (Natural History), London. HARTIG, T. 1848. Beitrage zur Geschichte der Pflanzen und zur Kenntnis der norddeutschen Braunkohlen-Flora. BotanischeZeitung,6,137-146,166-172. HEER, O. 1855-1859. Flora Tertiaria Helvetiae, Volume 1 (1855); Volume 2 (1856); Volume 3 (1859). Winterthur, Zurich, Switzerland. HEMSLEY, A.R. 2001. Comparison of in vitro decomposition of bryophytic and tracheophytic material. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 137, 375-384. HOWSE, R. 1890. Contributions towards a catalogue of the Flora of the Carboniferous System of Northumberland and Durham. Part I. Fossil Plants from the Hutton Collection. Natural History Transactions of the Northumberland, Durham and Ne\vcastle-on-Tyne Natural History Society, 10,19-151. KIDSTON, R. 1891. Notes on the Palaeozoic species mentioned in Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora. Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh, 10, 345-391. LEBOUR, G.A.(ed.). 1877. Illustrations of Fossil Plants: An Autotype Reproduction of Selected Drawings Prepared Under the Direction of Dr. Lindley and W. Hutton Between 1835 and 1840. Northern England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Newcastle, 1-139. LINDLEY, J. 1829. Description of the plants alluded to in the preceding memoir. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 7, 298. LINDLEY, J. & HUTTON, W. 1833-1837. The Fossil Flora of Great Britain, or Figures and Descriptions of the Vegetable Remains Found in a Fossil State in this Country: Volume 1 (1833); Volume 2 (1835); Volume 3 (1837). James Ridgeway, London. MCCARTNEY, PJ. 1977. Henry De la Beche: Observations of an Observer. Friends of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. MITCHELL, A.F. 1972. Conifers in the British Isles. Forestry Commission Booklet No. 33. HMSO, London. MURCHISON, R.I. 1835. On a fossil fox found at Oeningen near Constance. Transactions of the Geological Society, series 2,3, 277-290. MURCHISON, R.I. & LYELL, C. 1829. On the Tertiary Freshwater Formations of Aix, in Provence, including the coal-field of Fuveau, with a description of the fossil insects, shells and plants, contained therein; by John Curtis, J. de C. Sowerby and J. Lindley. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 6,287-298. MURRAY, P. 1828. Account of a Deposit of fossil plants, discovered in the Coal Formation of the Third Secondary Limestone, near Scarborough. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 5,311-317.

JOHN LINDLEY: RELUCTANT PALAEOBOTANIST NEWMAN, A. & CHATT-RAMSEY, J. 1988. A Catalogue of the Specimens Figured in 'The Fossil Flora' by John Lindley (1799-1865) and William Button (1797-1860) Held by the Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne, Including a biography of William Button. The Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne. SAPORTA, G. 1862. Etudes sur la vegetation du sud-est de la France a Fepoque tertiare. Annales Scientifiques Naturelles, Botanique, series 4,17, 191-311. SCHIMPER, W.P. 1869. Traite de Paliontologie Veg&ale ou laflore du mondeprimitif, I. Bailliere, Paris. SEDGWICK, A. & MURCHISON, R.I. 1840. On the physical structure of Devonshire, and on its subdivisions and geological relations of its older stratified deposits. Transactions of the Geological Society, London, 5, 633-703. SEWARD, A.C. 1898. Fossil Plants, Volume I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. STEARN, W.T. (ed.) 1999a. John Lindley 1799-1865. Antique Collectors Club in association with the Royal Horticultural Society, Woodbridge, Suffolk.

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STEARN, W.T. I999b. The life, times and achievements of John Lindley 1799-1865. In: STEARN W.T. (ed.) John Lindley 1799-1865. Antique Collectors Club in association with the Royal Horticultural Society, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 15-72. STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1838. Versuch einer geognostischen-botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Volume II: Parts 7 and 8. Hasse, und Sohne Prague. STOPES, M.C. 1916. An early type of Abietineae (?) from the Cretaceous of New Zealand. Annals of Botany, 30, 111-125. VAN KONIJNENBURG-VAN CITTERT, J.H.A. & MORGANS, H.S. 1999. The Jurassic Flora of Yorkshire. The Palaeontological Association, London. WILLIAMSON, W.C. 1896. Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist. George Redway, London. WITHAM, H.T.M. 1833. The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables Found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic Deposits of Great Britain. Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh.

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Illustrations and illustrators during the 'Golden Age' of palaeobotany: 1800-1840 CHRISTOPHER J. CLEAL, MAUREEN LAZARUS & ANNETTE TOWNSEND Department of Biodiversity and Systematic Biology, National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP, UK Abstract: Three works from the early 19th century stand out as having influenced the development of scientific palaeobotany: Schlotheim's Beschreibungen merkwurdiger Krauter-Abdriicke (1804, printed by Becker, Gotha), Sternberg's Flora der Vorwelt, [Volume I: 1820-1821, (Parts 1 and 2), printed by F. Fleischer, Leipzig; 1823-1825 (parts 3 and 4), printed by E. Brenck's Wittwe, Regensburg: Volume II: 1833 (Parts 5 and 6), printed by J. Spurny, Prague; 1838 (Parts 7 and 8), printed by G. Hasse und Sohre, Prague] and Brongniart's Histoire des vegetaux fossiles (1828-1837, 1837-1838, printed by G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris). The text of all three works contains important insights into the nature of plant fossils and how they relate to modern-day vegetation. Significantly, however, they are also among the first published works to include accurate images of plant fossils, and thus raised the awareness of the scientific community as to the importance of such fossils. Schlotheim's illustrations were based on his own drawings and were reproduced as etchings by the well-known botanical illustrator Johann Capieux of Leipzig. Sternberg's illustrations were based on original artwork prepared by various artists, many of whom were essentially landscape and portrait artists. The final illustrations were again reproduced as etchings, prepared by another eminent botanical illustrator Jacob Sturm of Nuremberg. Brongniart's illustrations are quite different, being lithographs, prepared by Mme Ve Noel, L. Houloup and Thierry freres'. They were based on drawings by various artists, although most were, in effect, copies of originals prepared by Brongniart.

Prior to the 17th century, those people who took any notice of fossils tended to regard them as 'sports of nature' - interesting curios with perhaps some aesthetic interest, but not really meriting serious scholarly attention. During the 18th century, however, a number of natural historians started to take more serious notice of them and started to consider what they really represented. By the start of the 19th century, the general consensus was that they were the remains of past life and therefore had an important message to give as to what life was like in the past. This in turn laid the foundations for the Darwinian revolution in the mid-19th century, from which most aspects of modern palaeontological and biological science has subsequently grown. Critical during this early history was the communication of information. Scholars interested in palaeontology were not numerous and were widely dispersed, mainly around Europe. As with most sciences, books and the early journals provided a means of disseminating ideas. However, palaeontology is not a metaphysical subject - its ideas are firmly rooted in physical objects (i.e. the fossils and the rocks in which they are found). It was vital, therefore, for the growth of the subject that these fossils themselves were illustrated in the early literature. Descriptive text can only partly fulfil this role; to be able to show what the fossils really looked like, it was essential that they were illustrated.

Today we take for granted the importance of good-quality illustrations in palaeontological literature, mainly through photography. Photography is now a relatively easy technique that can produce what was for long regarded as an objective record of an object. In the early 19th centuries, however, illustrations had to be produced using techniques that had more in common with art. The accuracy of the illustration thus had to depend on the skill of the illustrator and the refinement of the method used to transfer that image onto the printed page. In this paper we will look briefly at some of the illustrators who were producing the images being used by three of the key players in the development of scientific palaeobotany during the first part of the 19th century: Ernst von Schlotheim, Adolphe Brongniart and Kaspar von Sternberg. We will also compare some of the printing techniques being used at that time, to see how they affected the accuracy of the final printed image. This is not just of historical interest, as 1820 marks the starting point for palaeobotanical taxonomic nomenclature (ICBN Article 13; Greuter et al 2000). Many of the common palaeobotanical species were first described at this time and a proper understanding of these species requires the type specimens to be analysed. In many cases, this still has to be based on the original illustrations, especially where the original specimens have been lost.

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,41-61.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim (1764-1832) Schlotheim was a student of one of the founding fathers of geology, Abraham Werner of Freiberg, Saxony (Zittel 1901; Langer 1966). However, he also had close links with various botanists and zoologists, such as J.R Blumenbach and S. von Bridel, which no doubt helped him in his later palaeobotanical studies. He held various posts, mainly in Saxony, and ultimately (from 1822) became curator of the Library, Art and Natural History Collections of the Duke of Saxony, in Gotha. Schlotheim's two principal palaeobotanical studies dated from 1804 and 1820. They are based on specimens in his private collection, much of which ultimately found its way to the Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin, where it is still housed (Daber 1970). The fossils originated mainly from the Carboniferous of Saarland and France, and the Lower Permian of Thuringia. The two studies are rather different in textual presentation. The 1804 volume was mainly concerned with making exhaustive comparisons between the fossil plants and living plants. He found the nearest comparisons with plants growing today in 'southern' floras (i.e. tropical vegetation), which is interesting in view of our current understanding of Late Palaeozoic palaeoclimates in Europe. However, the obvious discrepancies in detail from modern species made Schlotheim reluctant to name the fossils, even to the generic level. Consequently, the 1804 study includes extensive descriptions but no formal names. In contrast, his 1820 study concentrated more on comparing fossils with fossils. This allowed him to develop a binomial nomenclature, with genera intended exclusively for use with fossils (e.g. Filicites, Carpolithes). Unfortunately, none of the genera was diagnosed, being one of the reasons why Schlotheim (1820) is regarded as having been published prior to the formal starting point of palaeobotanical nomenclature (ICBN Article 13 - see Storch 1981; Kvacek 1982). It was, nevertheless, an important development for palaeobotany, especially in Germany where this style of nomenclature had not previously been used for plant fossils. The published plates, on which Schlotheim placed great importance, were copper-plate etchings, as can clearly be seen by a careful examination of the lines. They were printed on paper that was approximately quarto size (300-305 X 225-230 mm). The final engravings were prepared by Johann Stephan Capieux (1748-1813), who was drawing master at the University of Leipzig (see Fig. 1). Capieux had close contacts with many of the botanists working then at Leipzig, and he illustrated several of the finest botanical publications of the time (e.g. Hedwig 1782; Dreves & Hayne 1802). It was perhaps through

Fig. 1. Part of Schlotheim (1804, plate 1) showing a terminal portion of leafy calamite shoot (Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart) clearly showing the 'naive' style of drawing used by Schlotheim. Also visible is the signature of the engraver Capieux.

Schlotheim's botanical acquaintances that he obtained the services of such an eminent botanical illustrator. Schlotheim repeatedly emphasized that he regarded the factual evidence provided by the descriptions and illustrations of the fossils as being central to his work. This probably explains why he went to the effort of obtaining the services of such an eminent engraver to illustrate his work. Brongniart (1822) was critical of much of Schlotheim's work, including the illustrations. In particular, he noted that the illustrations showing the whole specimen were not accompanied by close-ups showing details, such as venation. According to Langer (1966), the illustrations were based on Schlotheim's own drawings but, unfortunately, the current whereabouts of the originals is unknown (S. Schultka pers. comm. 2002). However, two stylistic points stand out from the published etchings. First, the individual images are not particularly well arranged on each plate, such that there is rather a lot of wasted space (e.g. Figs 2 and 3 of this paper). They do not compare well with the plates in Brongniart (1828-1838 - see Figs 9-11 later in this paper) each of which usually contains illustrations of far more fossils. Without seeing the original drawings, it is difficult to see who was responsible for this: Schlotheim or Capieux. The second and rather more important point is that the drawings are in a rather unsophisticated, almost 'naive', style and detailed structures are not particularly well represented (e.g. Fig. 1).

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

43

Fig. 2. Schlotheim (1804, plate 2) showing specimens of Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart (Fig. 3), Sphenophyllum schlotheimii Brongniart (Fig. 24) and Laveineopteris tenuifolia (Schlotheim ex Sternberg) Cleal et al. (Fig. 25). This is a good example of how the specimens are rather widely spaced on the plates.

Nevertheless, the illustrations provide a very faithful impression of the overall morphology and size of the specimens. The hand colouring, in particular, is very skilfully and accurately executed, suggesting that it was done under close supervision by Capieux, if not by Capieux himself. There is little question as to which specimen in Schlotheim's collection is represented in each illustration. As pointed out by Langer (1966) they are better than virtually all previously published illustrations of plant fossils. This is not to say that they are always exact copies of the specimens. For instance, Schlotheim (1804, plate 11, Fig. 22; reproduced in the present paper in Fig. 3) repre-

sents the holotype of Alethopteris lonchitica Sternberg with pinnae from both sides of the hand specimen shown on the same surface of the rock (Zodrow & Cleal 1998). However, this does not detract from the scientific accuracy and value of the plate, and arguably enhances the information that it provides.

Kaspar Maria von Sternberg (1761-1837) Sternberg was the third son of Jan Nepomuk Graf von Sternberg, the head of a wealthy, aristocratic

44

CJ.CLEALetal.

Fig. 3. Schlotheim (1804, plate 11) showing specimens of an indeterminate mariopteroid pteridosperm (Fig. 20) and Alethopteris lonchitica Steinberg (Fig. 22). The latter image shows pieces of fossil from both sides of the hand specimen, reproduced as though they occurred on the same surface (see Zodrow & Cleal 1998).

family with extensive property in Bohemia, including a 'palace' in Prague. As was common with younger sons of aristocratic families, Kaspar was directed by his parents towards a career in the clergy. On the face of it, a highly successful political career in the Catholic clergy seemed likely and he was eventually appointed to a senior position under the Archbishop of Mainz. When his father died in 1798, his elder brother Joachim became head of the family (the eldest brother, Jan Nepomuk, had died earlier in 1789). However, when Joachim also died less than 10 years later (1808), Kaspar became head of the family and he left the clergy. A brief account of Steinberg's life, with references to more complete biographies, can be found in Kvacek & Strakova (1997) and Kvacek & Patova (1998). Sternberg had a long-standing involvement in natural history, partly influenced by his brother Joachim, who had become interested in geology. He was a widely recognized expert on the botany of

Saxifraga on which he published a major monograph (Sternberg 1810, 1822, 1831). However, palaeobotany was his major passion. This was initiated during one of his journeys around Europe, when he saw a copy of Schlotheim's (1804) account of fossil plants (although the two apparently never met) and the illustrations reminded him of items in his brother's collection. This started him on the study of fossil plants and to build up a substantial collection. This collection eventually formed part of the Narodniho Muzea, Prague, which he helped to found in 1818. It was one of the most important palaeobotanical collections of its time and included specimens, not only from Bohemia, but from throughout Europe, the latter acquired through his extensive network of contacts among the academic community. A catalogue of the collections has been published by Kvacek & Strakova (1997) and its importance has been discussed by Kvacek & Kvacek (1992). Steinberg's work culminated in the publication of the two volumes known as Flora der Vorwelt (1820-1838), which included his ideas as to the classification and interpretation of plant fossils, as well as 127 large plates which included illustrations of the best examples from his collection (plus seven plates of living plants, for comparison). Sternberg funded the publication himself and, with his personal resources, there was no stinting in its production. Both illustrations and text were published in folio volumes (400 X 250 mm). They were printed on thick laid paper of very high quality, with pages showing one or other of two distinctive watermarks. One simply gives the names 'C & I Honig'; the other shows a coat of arms with a lion rampant beneath a crown, with the words ' Vryheid' below the lion, and the words 'Pro Patria Eiusque Libertate' in a circular band around the lion. This is the mark of a Flemish firm of papermakers that was well known for producing high-quality paper in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Four different printers were used: F. Fleischer of Leipzig (Parts 1 and 2), Ernst Brenk's Wittwe (widow) of Regensburg (Parts 3 and 4), Johann Spurnny of Prague (Parts 5 and 6) and Gotlieb Hasse Sohne (Sons) of Prague (Parts 7 and 8). All the engravings were by Jacob Sturm (1771-1848) of Nuremberg. He was part of a dynasty of botanical illustrators, his father Johann Georg (1742-1793) having been an engraver of botanical illustrations, as were his sons Johann Heinrich Christian Friedrich (1805-1862) and Johann Wilhelm (1808-1865). However, it was Jacob that became the best known, mainly through his work on the monumental Deutschlands Flora, published between 1798 and 1862. This was probably the most influential early flora to cover all of the German lands, having been produced in a small format (page size 130 X 90 mm) to encourage wide circulation.

45

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

Table 1. Artists who contributed illustrations to Sternberg's Flora der Vorwelt, showing how many plates they provided.

Johann Daniel Preyssler E. Anton Auinger C. Zetter M.A. Nicholson Mary Morland James Sowerby Franz Both DC Berghes Christ. Hohe Jurgend Schmelda Joseph Zehner F. Simon Jos. Rossert August C.J. Corda Unattributed TOTAL

Parti

Part 2

5 4

11

Part 3

Part 4

Parts 5 and 6

Part 7 and 8

22* 1 1

3

1 1 3 2 3

14

1 1

4 13

2 13

3 13

4 20

2 26

7t 15 20 45

*Schmelda's name is given on the original artwork for Plate 12, but not on the published plate, ^ossert's name is given on the original artwork for Plates 31 and 32, but not on the published plates.

Also, despite the small size, Deutschlands Flora is notable for the high quality of the illustrations (Rix 1981; Blunt & Stern 1994). Sturm had contacted Steinberg after the publication of the first part of his Saxifraga monograph (Sternberg 1810) and had asked him to contribute text on that group of plants for the Deutschlands Flora (Sturm 1812, 1813). He later provided the illustrations to the supplements to the Saxifraga monograph (Sternberg 1822, 1831). It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that Sternberg looked to Sturm for a high-quality engraver for his palaeobotanical monograph. Sturm prepared the plates from original artwork by various artists. A comparison of the artwork (stored in the Ndrodniho Muzea, Prague) with the published plates shows that Sturm reproduced the former with great fidelity. The unevenness in style between the plates (e.g. contrast Figs 4-6) reflects the differences in the original artwork, rather than unevenness in Sturm's work. In some cases, he simply copied a painting showing one or more fossils. Often, however, he had to deal with a composite, made up of paintings of different fossils, each evidently cut out from larger original paintings and glued on to a piece of paper, presumably by Sternberg. In some cases, individual figures would be crossed-out in pencil and an alternative image provided, either an improved painting of the same fossil, or a painting of a better-preserved fossil. Sturm was also in some cases expected to 'complete' details of repetitive structures in certain types of fossil, such as the helically arranged leaf-scars in arborescent lycophytes. An excellent example is plate 6 in Volume 1 (see Fig. 4 of this paper) of the

type specimens of Lepidodendron aculeatum Stbg and L. obovatum Stbg, where the original painting only has details of five or six of the leaf cushions in each specimen, and Sturm has 'filled-in' the rest. The specimens that were in Sternberg's own collection, and which are now housed in the Narodniho Muzea, Prague, were drawn by at least five artists (Table 1).

Johann Daniel Preyssler (1768-1839) Preyssler was a mining engineer who had taken Sternberg to collect fossil plants, and who had helped with the curation and display of the latter's dead brother's (Joachim) geological collection at Bfezina Castle. He was also a well-known entomologist. An example of his work is shown on Figure 4 of this paper.

E. Antonin Auinger (c. 1800-1821) He was a young painter from Rokycany (near Sternberg's castle Bfezina) who had studied at the Prague Academy. He was the main contributor of illustrations in Part 2. It is noticeable that, after his premature death in 1821, no further illustrations of his were included in Flora der Vorwelt. This tends to indicate that the illustrations were being produced as the work was being progressively published, rather than there having been a set of illustrations available at the start. A representative example of his work is shown in Figure 5 of this paper.

46

CJ.CLEALetal.

Fig. 4. Sternberg (1820, plate 6) showing the type specimens of Lepidodendron aculeatum Sternberg and Lepidodendron obovatum Sternberg. Based on original artwork by D. Preyssler. Photographs of parts of these specimens can be found in Thomas (1970, plate 29, Figs 1 and 2).

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

47

Fig. 5. Sternberg (1821, plate 17) showing Lepidodendron selaginoides Sternberg (Fig. 1), Catamites nodosa Sternberg (Fig. 2) and Artisia sp. Based on original artwork by E. A. Auinger. Photographs of these specimens can be found in Kvacek & Strakova (1997, plate 22, Fig. 5; plate 38, Fig. 1; plate 50, Fig. 1).

48

CJ.CLEALetal.

Fig. 6. Sternberg (1823, plate 35) showing lAlnus spp. (Figs 1 and 2) (= Phyllites juglandiformis Sternberg and Phyllites lobatus Sternberg - see comments in Kvacek & Strakova 1997, pp. 91 and 97), Sphenophyllum cuneifolium (Sternberg) Zeiller (Fig. 3) and Widdringtonia graminea (Sternberg) Knobloch (Fig. 4). Based on original artwork by FJ. Both. The Sphenophyllum specimen is figured as a photograph by Kvacek & Strakova (1997, plate 37, Fig. 2); the other specimens are reported by Kvacek & Strakova (1997) to be lost.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

Frantisek 'Franz' Jan Both (born 1792) After the death of Auinger, Both took over as the main artist for the Flora der Vorwelt. He had been born in Boumov and was a well-known painter and engraver in Prague. Plate 35 is attributed to 'Franz Roth', but there can be little doubt that this is a misspelling of Franz Both (this plate is reproduced in Fig. 6 of this paper).

Ignac 'Jg.'Schmelda (1797-1839) Schmelda, who was born in Prague, took over from Both as the main illustrator for the Flora der Vorwelt during the 8-year interregnum between the publication of Volumes 1 and 2 (1825-1833). He was a portrait painter who had studied at the Prague Academy. The original artwork is dated, one from 1830, 10 from 1831, four from 1832, and three from 1833. Four others are composites made up from parts that were cut from larger originals and from which the dates are mostly missing (only plate 14 has dates, one part from 1830, another from 1832). An example of Schmelda's work is shown in Figure 7 of this paper.

August Karl Joseph Corda (1809-1849) Corda was the zoological curator at the Narodniho Muzea in Prague from 1835. He worked closely with Sternberg and was largely responsible for completing the last part during the latter's last illness. After Steinberg's death, Corda's position at the museum became insecure and he applied for a number of positions elsewhere (Kvacek & Strakova 1997). However, he was unsuccessful in this and remained in Prague until 1849, when he took part in an expedition to Texas (Andrews 1980). This ended in tragedy when the ship that he was travelling in was wrecked in the Atlantic, resulting in the loss of his life and all his collections. A few of Corda's illustrations are similar in style to those of his predecessors such as Schmelda. However, Corda also wrote some of the text in this last part of Flora der Vorwelt, in particular sections detailing the cellular anatomy of the fossils (Steinberg's poor eyesight had prevented him doing such microscope work). Corda's illustrations dealing with this anatomical evidence are inevitably quite different in style from the others in the book (Fig. 8). Two other artists contributed one plate each to Volume 1 of the work - C. Zetter (plate 27) and De Berghes (plate 49). Most of the specimens illustrated by Zetter and Berghes are reported lost, but one is

49

reported to now be in the Sternberg Collection (Kvacek & Strakova 1997). It is possible, therefore, that these two pieces of artwork were commissioned directly by Sternberg. However, why these artists were not used further in this project is unknown. In addition to specimens from his own collection, Sternberg figured many plates of fossils that had been provided by colleagues. Dean William Buckland (1784-1856), Professor of Mineralogy at Oxford University, supplied plates of fossils from the Jurassic of Britain, mainly from the Stonesfield Flora (Oxfordshire, UK - see Cleal & Rees 2004). Correspondence from Buckland dated 11 February 1822, still in the Narodniho Muzea, Prague, records that he had seen proofs of illustrations in the French edition of Steinberg's work and had been much impressed by their quality (Kvacek 2000). Significantly, he compares them very favourably against those being published by Adolphe Brongniart (given the date of the letter, presumably those in Brongniart's 1822 paper). Three of the illustrations sent by Buckland were the work of Mary Morland (1797-1857), the wife of William Buckland. Morland was a well-established palaeontological illustrator before she met and married Buckland, and had contributed illustrations to various monographs by William Conybeare, George Cuvier and her future husband (Kolbl-Ebert 1997). One of the figures on plate 33 is attributed to 'Imances Buckland' the meaning of which is unclear. Another two plates are inscribed with the name James Sowerby. There were, in fact, two James Sowerby, father and son, who were noted illustrators of natural history specimens. However, it seems most likely that it was the son, James de Carle Sowerby (1787-1871), who provided the illustrations for Sternberg. He was better known for his illustrations of fossil shells but, as noted by Buckland when awarding him the Geological Society of London Wollaston Fund (1840), he also illustrated some fossil plants (Anon. 1871). Buckland asked that the plates were returned to him when 'copies' had been prepared. He also asked that they were always kept under glass to ensure that they were not damaged (Kvacek 2000). According to a list by J. Sowerby of the illustrations of fossils provided by Buckland (Kvacek 2000 p. 95), there were originally eight paintings, whereas Sternberg only included five plates in the published work. Unfortunately, the original artwork is not in the archives of the Geological Museum of Oxford University (P. Powell pers. comm.) and its present location is unknown. Without being able to see the originals, it is therefore difficult to relate the list to the Steinberg's plates. Plates 1, 3 and 8 in Sowerby's list are probably those shown in Steinberg's plates 38,30 and 39, respectively. Sowerby's plate 5 probably represents figures 2-3 in Steinberg's plate 33,

50

CJ.CLEALetal.

Fig. 7. Sternberg (1833, plate 19) showing Neuropteris plicata Sternberg (Figs 1 and 3), Neuropteris obovata Steinberg (Fig. 2) and Neuropteris acutifolia Brongniart (Fig. 4). Based on original artwork by J. Schmelda. The specimens are figured as photographs by Kvacek & Strakova (1997, plate 36, Fig. 6; plate 40, Fig. 5; plate 41, Fig. 2; plate 61, Fig. 3).

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

Fig. 8. Sternberg et al (1833, plate 54) showing hand specimens and thin sections of Catamites stems.

51

52

CJ.CLEALetaL

but it is difficult to identify figure 1 in Steinberg's plate (a Ptilophyllum) unless it is that on Sowerby's plate 7. It is difficult to relate any of the fossils in Steinberg's plate 37 to the list, nor is any mention apparently made of the Early Jurassic specimens figured there. Sternberg clearly did not illustrate the plate of 'ensiform leaves', which presumably belong to Pelourdea and which is one of the most distinctive components of the Stonesfield Flora (Cleal & Rees 2004). There is also a plate of Carboniferous specimens that are now in the Natural History Museum, London, and which was based on drawings by M.A. Nicholson. Sternberg makes no comment on Nicholson other than attributing the drawing to him, and we have been unable to find out anything definite about him. H. Torrens (pers. comm.) has pointed out that there was a Nicholson family in the Bristol area, some of whom took an interest in natural history. There was, for instance, a Reverend Mark Nicholson (1770-1838), and a number of his descendants used the middle name Alleyne, so it is possible to speculate that he was Mark Alleyne Nicholson. However, we have no clear evidence that he was interested in natural history and so might have been a candidate for the artist of Steinberg's plate. A plate of Mesozoic fossils from Germany (Volume 2, plate 21) is attributed to F. Simon. Five of the fossils are Equisetites from the Triassic of 'Wurtenburg' (presumably Wurttemberg), which had been provided by G.F. Jaeger, a well-known natural historian of Stuttgart. A sixth specimen is of a possible alga from Solenhofen, then in the collections of the University of Freiburg Museum (presumably Freiburg-im-Breisgau in Baden-Wurttemberg) but now reported lost (Kvacek & Strakova 1997). Although there is no record of it, it seems likely that Simon's artwork for the plate was provided by Jaeger. A plate of fossils from the Miocene of Romania (Volume 2, plate 11) was provided by Partsch (the fossils are now in the Natural History Museum, Vienna - see Kovar-Eder 1990). The artwork is attributed to Joseph Zehner. Of the other artists of central European origin, little has been discovered except for Christian Hohe (1798-1869) of Bavaria, who was a noted portrait and landscape painter and lithographer, who had studied at Munich. He illustrated a single plate (plate 58) of Late Carboniferous plant fossils. Two of the fossils came from Eschweiler in Saarland, Germany, and are now in the Sternberg Collection in Prague. Kvacek & Strakova (1997) record that they were presented by Herr Graser, the director of the mine presumably where they were found, although Sternberg records that the specimen in Figure 2 was presented by Herr Sack of Bonn. The third figure

shows a group of ovules (now reported lost) presented by Herr Noggerath, a senior mine supervisor also from Saarland. It seems likely, therefore, that the artwork had been prepared in Germany before the specimens were donated to Sternberg. The seven plates by Jos. Rossert display a variety of Mesozoic and Tertiary fossils, mostly from Germany. Many are reported by Kvacek & Strakova (1997) to be lost but, of those that can still be located, some are in the Sternberg Collection in Prague, whilst others are in the Bavarian State Museum for Palaeontology and Historical Geology, Munich. In some cases they are stated to be from the collection of Georg Graf zu Minister (1776-1844) of Bayreuth, from Bamberg. Significantly, the signature on the original artwork is 'Rossert de Bamberg'. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that this artwork was prepared on behalf of Graf Miinster and then sent to Sternberg. When viewed overall, it has to be said that the quality of the artwork is somewhat variable through the volume. All of the plates undoubtedly had an attractive appearance, helping to fulfil Steinberg's aim of raising general awareness as to the importance of plant fossils. As pointed out by Kvacek & Strakova (1997), the colours tend to be very faithfully reproduced, but the shape and contours of the rock are often stylized, which can make difficulties when trying to match specimen to illustration. It is when the details of the fossils are examined that the unevenness in quality becomes evident. The plates based on the work of Preyssler and Corda stand out as being of the highest quality, and it may not be a coincidence that these were both active palaeontologists who understood the fossils. Preyssler's now well-known illustrations of the holotypes of Lepidodendron aculeatum Sternberg and Lepidodendron obovatum Sternberg (Fig. 4 of this paper) clearly show considerable attention to detail and significantly includes a scale bar (compare them with the photographs of these specimens figured by Thomas 1970, plate 29, Figs 1 and 2). The plates provided by his foreign colleagues, especially those provided by Buckland, are also of high quality, again probably reflecting the fact that they were produced by artists experienced at working with fossils. However, the plates based on the work of the young portrait and landscape painters employed by Sternberg are, in many cases, of lower quality. Schmedla's paintings are generally quite good, especially in the surface details of the fossils, but those of Auinger and Both are, in many cases, somewhat stylized. Auinger's representations of the morphology was often rather simplified (e.g. Fig. 5 of this paper), whilst Both seems to have paid as much attention to the detailed texture of the rock surface as to the plant fossil (e.g. Fig. 6 of this paper).

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

Adolphe Brongniart (1801-1876) Although Brongniart belonged to a younger generation than Schlotheim and Sternberg, he was publishing on palaeobotany at about the same time as them. Brongniart was the son of the eminent French geologist Alexandre Brongniart and, although not of as wealthy and aristocratic extraction as Sternberg, was comfortably well off. He became a doctor of medicine by the age of 25, but was already deeply immersed in the study of palaeobotany (e.g. Brongniart 1822). During his 20s and 30s, he travelled extensively throughout Europe and met many of the leading geologists of his day (no doubt often aided by an introduction from his eminent father). In 1831, Brongniart was appointed to a position at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, and thereafter was able to commit himself full time to the study of palaeobotany. According to Andrews (1980), he was the first person to be able to devote himself full time to this subject; presumably, Andrews meant in a professional sense. The published work for which Brongniart became best known dates from about this time - the Histoire des vegetauxfossiles (Brongniart 1828-1837,1837-1838). The first four of the 15 parts of this work were, in fact, published before Brongniart had been formally appointed to the museum, suggesting that he had close contacts with the institution well before this time. A further nine parts were planned but never published, and the last published part ends in mid-sentence. Unlike the works of Schlotheim and Sternberg, the Histoire was not based on a private collection, but on the collection of a large institution, the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. It was one of the largest (if not the largest) collection of plant fossils of its day and provided Brongniart with a vast resource for his studies. It is not surprising, therefore, that the specimens figured in this work are often far larger and more complete than those figured by the others. Brongniart also had the advantage of the resources of a large institution to finance the publication. The Histoire includes 199 plates printed on paper of approximate quarto size (293 X 215 mm). They present an interesting combination of printing techniques. The history of printing of the plates falls into two periods. Plates for the first nine parts were mostly lithographs by L. Houloup, of 22 and 24 rue Dauphine, Paris. For the first four of those parts, Mme Ve Noel produced the lithographic plates. On some plates she gives her address as 26 rue Dauphine, on others the same address as the printer. In Part 5, however, some of the lithographic plates are attributed to L. Houloup himself, and thereafter Noel's name ceases to appear. The second period covers the publication of parts 10-15. Again, most of the plates are lithographs, but

53

the plates are now produced by 'Thierry freres, succrs Englemann'. The name of a printer is not given on any of these plates and it may be assumed that Thierry was also responsible for the printing. There is no obvious change in style between Houloup's work and that of Thierry, and the reason for the change is not clear. However, the change clearly had an effect on the production schedule of the Histoire. For most of the 10 years that it was being published, a new part was normally produced at least every 12 months, sometimes more frequently. However, there was a gap of more than 2 years between the appearances of parts 9 and 10, presumably representing a hiatus as a new printer was sought. All of the fossils illustrated in the Histoire were reproduced as uncoloured lithographs. On first viewing, they seem rather drab in appearance and are certainly not as immediately impressive as the engravings in Steinberg's book. Nevertheless, they give a very realistic impression of what the fossils looked like, especially in the fine detail, such as the veining of foliage. Lithography also has the great advantage of allowing much longer print runs, as lithographic stones are much harder and thus have a longer life than the copper plates used in engravings and etchings. Lithographs also have the great advantage of not requiring colouring, which in the early 19th century was very labour intensive and thus costly, as it had to be carried out by hand. Brongniart was also anxious to show specimens of living plants, with which to compare the fossils. Curiously, however, the plates of living plants are mostly reproduced as simple line illustrations, showing details such as the of venation and position of the sporangia of ferns, but not making any attempt to make them look life-like. One series of these plates (plates 28-36) are clearly engravings, as the plate mark can be seen around the edge of the illustration, and the blunt line endings suggest that they were from etched plates. No information is given on these as to either printer or engraver, but they are clearly in quite a different style to the other plates and it seems unlikely that Houloup or Thierry produced them. One of the few exceptions to this is plate. 37 bis (a plate showing stems of living ferns see Fig. 9 of this paper), which is recorded as a lithograph by Thierry, and this is very close in style to the plates showing fossils. Plates 82A and 82B are superficially similar, showing line-illustration remains of living ferns. They both have the inscription 'Vielle sculpt.' possibly indicating that they are engravings. However, 82A also has 'Lith. de L. Houloup', indicating that they are, in fact, lithographs. This is also indicated by the absence of a plate mark around the edge of the illustrations, although this is not conclusive as sometimes such marks can be removed by trimming the paper.

54

CJ.CLEALetal.

Fig. 9. Brongniart (1837, plate 37bis) showing stems of extant ferns for comparison with the fossils. Based on an original by A. Riocreux.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

Plates 8-11 of Part 2 of the Histoire present a difficulty. They represent anatomical studies of modern club mosses and Psilotum, and many appear to be engravings. They were produced by a different printer to the others in the volume, L. Letronne of 15 quai Voltaire. One, in fact, is even inscribed 'Annedouche sc.' in the lower right-hand corner. However, there is no plate mark, and the term 'sc.' or 'sculpt' can sometimes be misleading; it cannot always be regarded as definitive evidence that it is an engraving. These are possibly pen lithographs, and can be compared with plate 12 of the same part of the Histoire, which is also almost certainly a pen lithograph, produced by Thierry. We have been able to find out very little more about the lithographers and engravers used in the Histoire. We investigated other geological books published by the same firm (G. Dufour & Ed. d'Ocagne of Paris and Amsterdam) but this did not help. The plates in Cuvier (1830, 1836), which mainly represent animal fossils, are all unattributed engravings. Cuvier & Brongniart (1822) has 17 lithographs of geological sections and some fossils including plants, but most are unattributed or the lithographer's name is illegible in the copy that we have seen. Only three plates have legible names (Mantoux and Benard) that are clearly different from the lithographers of the Histoire plates. Table 2 shows the artists that contributed the artwork from which the lithographic or engraving plates in the Histoire were produced. In the early parts, Brongniart himself provided many of the drawings. However, after 1831, when he became a member of the museum staff, the lithographs were based on drawings by other artists. Ten such artists are named, but five clearly contributed more than the others: Meunier (mainly Parts 2-5), Jouy and Oudard (Parts 6 and 7), Courtin (Parts 7-13) and Alfred Riocreux (Part 14).

E Boullemier The plates in Brongniart's (1822) paper were prepared by Boullemier. He provided only a single plate to the Histoire, showing Calamites, but this is of much better quality than the illustrations in the 1822 paper. Nothing further is known about him. An example of his work is shown in Figure 10 of this paper.

55

had natural history images on show at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris (Vollmer 1930). An example of his work is shown in Figure 11 of this paper.

Charles Louis Malapeux The single plate attributed to 'Malapeux' is almost certainly by Charles Louis, a well-known lithographer who managed a salon in Paris between 1834 and 1867 (Thieme 1913).

RL Oudart According to Stafleu & Cowan (1976), the plates signed 'Oudard' and 'Houdart' were probably by PL. Oudart, but no further information was given.

F. Courtin Again, no initial is given but the plates attributed to 'Courtin' were almost certainly by F. Courtin, a lithographer who specialized in portraits (especially of actors) but also in botanical subjects (Thieme 1912).

Alfred Riocreux A well-known scientific illustrator of the time, providing many illustrations of plants for the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Later he became curator of the Musee de la Ceramique at the Sevres porcelain factory, and in 1870 became Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. He contributed many of the originals of extant plants included in the Histoire, as well as of a number of fossil lycophytes, especially the Sigillaria barks. He was the son of a well-known porcelain flower painter, Denis Riocreux (1791-1872), who worked at Sevres (Vollmer 1934).

Joseph Decaisne (1807-1882)

Jean-Baptiste Meunier (1786-1858)

The botanist Decaisne was born in Belgium but moved to Paris as a young man to join the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, and ultimately became director of Jardin des Plantes. He supplied a single plate of microscope drawings showing the cellular structure of Recent Lycopodium.

Although no initial is given on the plates, those attributed to 'Meunier' may have been by JeanBaptiste Meunier. He was principally a miniature painter in aquarelle, but he is also reported to have

Nothing is known about the other four illustrators named in Brongniart's plates. Of those for whom we do have information, however, three things become clear. First, many of the artists had some contact with

Table 2. Artists who contributed illustrations to Brongniart's 'Histoire des vegetaux', showing the number of plates provided and the part they appeared in. Figures in parentheses represent the number of plates based on artwork that had been redrawn from an original by Brongniart. Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Ad. Brongniart F. Boullemier Meunier Malapeau Jouy Oudard Courtin Mathis Betremieux A. Riocreux Decaisne Unattributed

10

5

1

1

Total

15

13

14

14

4 1

7

8

6(2)

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

1

1

12(2)

Part 8

13(13) 1(1)

6(5) 3(3)

3 1

3(1)

6(5) 2(1) 5 (5) 1(1) KD

12 (12)

Part 14

10 (9)

12(4)

12

16(4)

9(1)

1 7

1 1 9

10

13

2 12

15

13

11

1

2(2)

1

14

Part 15

14

12

17

11

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

Fig. 10. Brongniart (1828, plate 17) showing various specimens of Catamites. Based on an original by F. Boullemier.

57

58

CJ.CLEALetal.

Fig. 11. Brongniart (1830, plate 52) showing the holotype of Lyginopteris hoeninghausii (Brongniart) Gothan. Based on an original by J.-B. Meunier.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840

either the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle and/or the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Presumably this is how they became involved in the project to illustrate Brongniart's work, and suggests that they had some experience at botanical illustration, if not working with fossils. Secondly, unlike Steinberg's work, there is no evident correlation between the artist and the provenance of the fossils. Even when the fossil was not in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, the illustration was usually based on an original drawing made by Brongniart, usually when he visited where the fossil was stored (e.g. the Stonesfield fossils in the University of Oxford - Cleal & Rees 2004). The exceptions are where direct copies were made of illustrations from the published work of other palaeobotanists. In some cases the source of the copy was acknowledged, for instance the illustrations of the holotypes of Paripteris gigantea (Sternberg) Gothan (plate 69) and Corynepteris angustissima (Sternberg) Nemejc (plate 120, Fig. 4) are acknowledged as being copies from Part 2 of Flora der Vorwelt (Sternberg 1821). The illustration of the holotype of Calamites steinhaueri Brongniart (plate 18, Fig. 4) is an acknowledged copy from Steinhauer (1818, plate 5, Fig. 1). In other cases, however, the copy is unacknowledged. For instance, although he does not say so, Brongniart's (1828, plate 3, Fig. 104) figures ofFucoides are direct copies from Parts 2 and 4 of Sternberg (1821, plate 26, Fig. 3; 1825, plate 48, Fig. 1); and Brongniart's (1837, plate 141) figures of Lepidodendron are copies of Sternberg (1820, plate 4, Fig. 2; 1823, plate 28). Brongniart's (1828, plate 17, Fig. 5; plate 18, Figs 1 and 2) figures of Calamites are also unattributed copies of figures in Artis (1825, plates 2 and 13). Finally, in many cases it is clearly stated that the artist was working from an original drawing or sketch, usually by Brongniart or (in Parts 11-15) by Riocreux. This gave a much tighter control on the accuracy of the illustration; the artist did not have to interpret the plant from the fossil, which might have presented difficulties for an artist with no previous experience of working with fossils. It also presumably explains the consistency in the style of illustrations throughout the work, despite the fact that they had been produced by different artists and lithographers (compare the three example plates reproduced in Figs 9-11 of this paper). The plates in Brongniart's book are by far the best illustrations of plant fossils that were published during the first part of the 19th century, and rank among the best non-photographic illustrations of such material ever produced. In many cases, they are objects of great beauty, such as the illustration of the type of Lyginopteris hoeninghausii (Brongniart) Gothan (reproduced in this paper as Fig. 11); the original of this would surely grace any wall.

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However, they also show great attention to detail and, in many cases, there are close-ups showing critical details of the fossils such as enlargements of pinnules (Fig. 11); none of the other works reviewed in this paper included such detail. The arrangement of the individual elements in each plate is also far superior to that in Schlotheim's and Steinberg's works. Excellent examples are the plates reproduced here in Figures 9 and 10, where there is very little wasted blank space on the page, but the plates still do not look cluttered.

Discussion These three major contributions to early palaeobotanical study provide interesting contrasts in how the images of plant fossils were presented. Schlotheim provided simple representations of the fossils in his private collection. They had been based on his own drawings, which, although rather unsophisticated, were, nevertheless, accurate representations of the form of the fossil. They were the kind of specimen that were relatively easy to find, and so the illustrations could be readily appreciated and understood by the average collector of his time. Sternberg used spectacular hand-coloured images of fossils both from his own and other people's collections. However, the illustrations were based on paintings of the fossils, many of which had been produced by artists not familiar with fossils. They were, therefore, not always as accurate as in the other contemporaneous publications, but they caught the eye and it is easy to see how they would have drawn the attention of someone not previously interested in palaeobotany. His book was, in essence, a tool for raising the profile of palaeobotany and potentially drawing in enhanced resources to the subject. We would today call it a 'coffee-table' publication. Brongniart's book was more of an institutional publication, illustrating fine specimens from arguably the greatest collection of plant fossils of its time. The images are monochrome and not as flamboyant as those illustrated by Sternberg, but are, nevertheless, often elegant. They are also extremely accurate, having mostly been based on original drawings by Brongniart himself or the eminent scientific illustrator Alfred Riocreux. Furthermore, unlike the other two works, most of the images were lithographs, which were cheaper to produce and thus allowed for a much longer print run (original copies of the Histoire are today much easier to find than the other two works). In the long run, therefore, Brongniart's work has reached a far wider audience and ultimately has had a much greater scientific impact. Whatever the differences, all three works have proved highly influential to the development of

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palaeobotany, due at least in part to the fine illustrations that they contain. They are regularly consulted even to this day by palaeobotanists, and it is important that we are able to understand how the illustrations were produced if we are to continue to use them to their full potential. We are grateful to Dr J. Kvacek for permission to see the original Sternberg artwork at the Narodnftio Muzea, Prague, and for his insights into the history of Sternberg and his work. The reproductions of plates from Volume 2 of Steinberg's work were provided by Dr P. Davis and Mr C. Shute of the Natural History Museum (London). We also thank Dr D. De Franceschi and Mme V Van de Ponseele of the Museum Nationale d'Histore Naturelle, Paris, for providing information about some of the illustrators used by Brongniart. Dr S. Schultka (Museum fur Naturkunde, Berlin) provided information on Schlotheim's original drawings; Prof. H. Torrens (University of Keele) gave advice on M.A. Nicholson and the family of William Buckland; Mr P. Powell (Geological Museum, University of Oxford) searched for the original paintings that William Buckland sent to Sternberg; Dr C. Burek (Chester College) gave information on Mary Moreland; and Mrs C. Mackay (National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff) advised us on printing techniques and papers. Finally, we would like to thank J. Hilton and H. Pearson for constructive reviews of the manuscript.

References ANDREWS, H.N. 1980. The Fossil Hunters. In Search of Ancient Plants. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. ANON. 1871. Obituary - James de Carle Sowerby. Geological Magazine, 8,478-479. ARTIS, E.T 1825. Antediluvian Phytology, Illustrated by a Collection of the Fossil Remains of Plants, Peculiar to the Coal Formations of Great Britain. Artis, London. BLUNT, W. & STERN, WT. 1994. The Art of Botanical illustration, new edition revised and enlarged. Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, and The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. BRONGNIART, A. 1822. Sur la classification et la distribution des vegetaux fossiles en general, et sur ceux des terrains de sediment superieur en particulier. Memoires du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, 8, 203-240, 297-348, plates 12-17. BRONGNIART, A. 1828-1837. Histoire des vegetaux fossiles, Volume 1: Parts 1 and 2 (1828); Part 3 (1829); Part 4 (1830); Parts 5 and 6 (1831); Part 7 (1833); Parts 8 and 9 (1834); Part 10 (1836); Parts 11 and 12 (1837). G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. BRONGNIART, A. 1837-1838. Histoire des vegetaux fossiles, Volume 2: Part 13 (1837); Parts 14 and 15 (1838). G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. CLEAL, C.J. & REES, P. McA. 2004. The Middle Jurassic flora from Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, UK. Palaeontology, 46,739-801. CUVIER, G. 1830. Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe, et sur les changements qu 'elles ontproduits dans le regne animal, 6th edn. d'Ocagne & Dufour, Paris.

CUVIER, G. 1836. Recherche sur les ossemens fossiles. Atlas. 4th edn. d'Ocagne, Paris (in two volumes). CUVIER, G. & BRONGNIART, A(LEXANDRE). 1822. Description geologique des environs de Paris. G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. DABER, R. 1970. E.R von Schlotheim und der Beginn der wissenschaftlichen Fragestellung in der Palaobotanik vor 150 Jahren. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universitat Berlin, MathematischNaturwissenschaftliche Reihe, 19, 249-255. DREVES, J.F. & HAYNE, EG. 1802. Choix des plantes d'Europe, decrites et dessinees d'apres nature. Voss et Compagnie, Leipzig. GREUTER, W, McNEiLL, J. et al. 2000. International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Saint Louis Code). Koeltz Scientific Books, Konigstein. HEDWIG, J. 1782. Fundamentum historiae naturalis muscorumfrondosorum. A.S.L. Crusium, Leipzig. KOLBL-EBERT, M. 1997. Mary Buckland (nee Morland) 1797-1857. Earth Sciences History, 16, 33-38. KOVAR-EDER, J. 1990. Kataloge der wissenschaftlichen Sammlung des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wein, Heft 1. Typen der Geologisch-Paldontologischen Abteilung Palaobotanik. Natural History Museum, Vienna. KVACEK, J. 2000. Kacpar M. hrabc Sternberg a jeho styky s anglickcm paleontologem Williamem Bucklandem. Muzejni a Vlastivednd Prdce/Casopsis Spolecnosti PrdtelStarozitnosti, 108,90-97. KVACEK, J. & STRAKOVA, M. 1997. Catalogue of Fossil Plants Described in Works of Kaspar M. Sternberg. Narodniho Muzea, Prague. KVACEK, J. & PATOVA, R. 1998. Kaspar M. Graf von Sternberg. Naturwissenschaftler und Begrunder des Nationalmuseums. Narodniho Muzea, Prague (Also published in Czech.) KVACEK, Z. 1982. Against the newly proposed starting point in paleobotany. Taxon, 31, 319. KVACEK, Z. & KVACEK, J. 1992. Sternberkovo dflo Flora der Vorwelt, jeho vyznam a stav dokladove sbfrky. Casopsis Ndrodni Museum v Praze, Rada prirodoved, 158,31^2. LANGER, W. 1966. Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim 1764-1832. Argumenta Palaeobotanica, 1, 19^40. Rix, M. 1981. The Art of the Botanist. Lutterworth Press, Guildford. SCHLOTHEIM, E.F. VON. 1804. Beschreibungen merkwiirdiger Krduter-Abdriicke und Pflanzen-Versteinerungen. Ein Beitrag zur Flora der Vorwelt. Becker, Gotha. SCHLOTHEIM, E.F. VON. 1820. Die Petrefactenkunde auf ihrem jetzigen Standtpunkte durch die Beschreibung seiner Sammlung versteinerter undfossiler Uberrest des Their- und Pflanzenreichs der Vorwelt erlautert. Becker, Gotha. STAFLEU, F.A. & COWAN, R.S. 1976. Taxonomic Literature. A Selective Guide to Botanical Publications and Collections with Dates, Commentaries and Dates, Volume I: A - G. Bonn, Scheltema & Holkema, Utrecht. STEINHAUER, H. 1818. On fossil reliquia of unknown vegetables in the coal strata. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 1,265-297. STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1810. Revisio Saxifragarum Iconibus Illustrata. H.F. A. Augustin, Regensberg.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ILLUSTRATORS: 1800-1840 STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1822. Revisio Saxifragarum Iconibus Illustrata. Supplementarum. Viduae Christ. E. Brenck, Regensberg. STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1820-1821. Versuch einer geognostisch-botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Volume I: Part 1 (1820); Part 2 (1821). F. Fleischer, Leipzig. STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1823-1825. Versuch einer geognostisch-botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Volume I: Part 3 (1823); Part 4 and Tentamen (1825). E. Brenck's Wittwe, Regensburg. STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1831. Revisio Saxifragarum Iconibus Illustrata. Supplementum secundum. J.G. Calve, Prague. STERNBERG, K.M., VON. 1833. Versuch einer geognostischbotanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Volume II (5-6). J. Spurny, Prague. STERNBERG, K.M., VON, PRESL, K.B. & CORDA, A.CJ. 1838. Versuch einer geognostisch-botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Volume II (7-8). G. Hasse und Sohne, Prague. STORCH, D. 1981. Der Startpunkt der palaobotanischen Nomenklatur. Taxon, 30,209-218. STURM, J. 1812. Deutschlands Flora in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. I. Abteilung. 9. Bandchen. Heft 33. Sturm, Niirnberg.

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STURM, J. 1813. Deutschlands Flora in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. I. Abteilung. 9. Bandchen. Heft 35. Sturm, Nurnberg. THIEME, U. 1912. Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Kunstler von derAntike bis zur Gegenwart. Siebenter Band. Seemann, Leipzig. THIEME, U. 1913. Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Achter Band. Seemann, Leipzig. THOMAS, B.A. 1970. Epidermal studies in the interpretation of Lepidodendron species. Palaeontology, 13, 145-173. VOLLMER, H. 1930. Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Vierundzwanzigster Band. Seemann, Leipzig. VOLLMER, H. 1934. Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Achtundzwanzigster Band. Seemann, Leipzig. ZITTEL, K.A. VON. 1901. History of Geology and Paleontology to the End of the Nineteenth Century. W. Scott, London. ZODROW, E.L. & CLEAL, C.J. 1998. Revision of the pteridosperm foliage Alethopteris and Lonchopteridium (Upper Carboniferous), Sydney Coalfield, Nova Scotia, Canada. Palaeontographica, Abteilung B, 247, 65-122.

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Hugh Miller: introducing palaeobotany to a wider audience LYALL I. ANDERSON Department of Natural Sciences, Royal Museum, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh EH 1 1JF, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract: The Hugh Miller collection (mainly NMS G.1859.33) held at the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, consists of 591 palaeobotanical specimens, 54 of which are of type and/or figured status. A preliminary assessment of this collection, in the light of renewed interest in Hugh Miller's works in the bicentenary of his birth (2002), has provided new insights into this remarkable Scottish geologist. Miller, through writing popular articles in both newspaper and book format, publicized the various subdisciplines of palaeontology including palaeobotany. His distinctive writing style promoted public understanding of the science, and helped his readers to grasp the concept of deep time and the intricacies of past worlds. An appendix of type and figured material based on Miller's collection is included.

Hugh Miller (1802-1856), Scottish newspaper editor, fossil collector and writer on geology amongst many things, primarily attracted the attention of the scientific community of his day through his discovery of Devonian fossil fish from various sites in the north of Scotland. Indeed, a number of these fish, at the time among the earliest known vertebrate fossils, were subsequently named in his honour (Agassiz 1844; Taylor 2002). This, coupled with his apparently unerring ability for finding new sites, through theory and fieldwork, marks him out as one of the important figures in the early history of Scottish palaeontology (Fig. 1). However, Miller's contribution to palaeobotany and invertebrate palaeontology in terms of the collection and recording of fossil material has, undeservedly, received far less recognition. He made extensive collections of plant fossils ranging in age from Devonian to Tertiary. Many of his sources were only available due to his local knowledge or his extended journeys of exploration through the Scottish landscape to otherwise remote localities. He also wrote extensively on the implications of these and other fossils for both science and religion (Miller 1857). The year 2002 marked the bicentenary of the birth of Hugh Miller. In this paper I highlight the breadth and importance of the Hugh Miller collection (NMS G.1859.33, G.1911.9 and G.1953.4) held in the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, to our palaeobotanical knowledge of Scotland. First, I examine some factors that influenced Hugh Miller's fossil collecting. Secondly, I explore the contribution to the popular understanding of fossil plants by Hugh Miller in his published works; and, finally, I present an appendix of type and figured palaeobotanical material in the Hugh Miller collection.

Hugh Miller: the collector, his working life and his collection Early days Hugh Miller's early years were spent in the town of Cromarty in the north of Scotland (Fig. 2). Whilst he was growing up, Cromarty was experiencing a boom in commerce, trading and manufacture (Alston 1996). Fishing and farming both played prominent roles in the economy of the town, which was situated on the fertile soils of the Old Red Sandstone and by the entrance to the safe anchorage afforded by the Cromarty Firth. The young Hugh Miller therefore had an ideal adventure playground to occupy his time in the guise of the local shoreline. This provided an environment that eventually nurtured a lifelong love of natural history, undoubtedly influenced by one of his uncles, Alexander Miller or 'Uncle Sandy'. Miller (1854, p. 59) acknowledged this when he wrote: 'There are Professors of Natural History that know less of living nature than was known by Uncle Sandy'. This early grounding in practical investigation and familiarity with the natural environment eventually extended to his taking notice of the rocks, minerals and fossils of his local area. Miller (1854, p. 67) notes his proud discovery of preserved wood, hazelnuts and fragments of antlers in a peat deposit just to the east of Cromarty as a boy. His Uncle James helped identify the various objects and suggested that the antler fragment came from an elk, a species no longer extant in Scotland. Recent construction of a water treatment plant (in June 2002) and an accompanying road cutting in this area has once again exposed what may be the particular locality where Miller dug out these post-glacial remains. Such early introduction to the wonders of preserved remains from the past, served only to fire Miller's inquisitiveness further. Oldroyd

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,63-90.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Fig. 1. Portrait of Hugh Miller reproduced from Bayne (1871) and originally from a painting by W. Bonnar.

(1996) notes that in his later years, Miller: 'always saw the geology of Scotland through spectacles furnished by his detailed local knowledge of the Cromarty District'. I would go further and say that these 'spectacles' helped focus his mind on both marine and plant life. Although certainly not a botanist, or observer of marine organisms to the same degree as his friends and contemporaries Robert Dick or Charles Peach, Miller had a working knowledge of the flora and fauna around him. The importance of the proximity of an accessible shoreline to the interests of the young Hugh Miller cannot be emphasized strongly enough. The interest in natural history instilled in the young Miller by his uncles served him throughout his whole scientific and travelling career. On a sea voyage north in 1847 from Granton, near Edinburgh, to Aberdeen, Miller (1858, p. 232) describes the varying land use and farm crops relating them to the underlying soils and local geology. Whilst sailing past Stonehaven, Miller noted:

The harvest had been early; and on to the village of Stonehaven, and a mile or two beyond, where the fossiliferous deposits end [Devonian and Upper Silurian] and the primary begin [Dalradian metasediments] . . . But the line of demarcation between the Old Red Sandstone and the granitic districts formed also a separating line between an earlier and later harvest

The same enthusiasm for a holistic approach to underlying geology and overlying land use is evident in some of the geological map slips completed by his son, Hugh Miller Junior, held in Murchison House (British Geological Survey, Edinburgh). These were a result of him being sent to re-survey the Old Red Sandstone familiar to his father in the countryside around Cromarty. The map slips clearly show the inclusion of crop types within the farm field boundaries. Obviously, the enthusiasm for collecting all available facts on the natural environment had passed from father to son.

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Fig. 2. Outline map of Scotland with the important collecting localities of Hugh Miller indicated. Eathie lies a few miles south of Cromarty. Burdiehouse is situated on the outskirts of Edinburgh to the south of the city.

Working life The young Miller began his career as an apprentice stonemason in February 1820, quarrying local building stone from an excavation near Cromarty. However, this work was soon abandoned, due to an unacceptable thickness of overburden, in favour of a quarry on the south side of the Black Isle near Eathie. Here an unusual set of geological circumstances juxtaposed what we now term Jurassic and Devonian sediments with metamorphic rocks of Moinian age, through the action of the Great Glen Fault. Although the sandstones quarried were of Devonian age, the foreshore hosts sediments of Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) age (Waterston 1951) and are covered by mid-tide. In breaks from work, and tide permitting, Miller explored this new shoreline and soon discovered for himself the palaeontological riches in close proximity to his

workplace. In fact, Miller (1841, p. 40) details his initial discovery as being an ammonite found during the first day the mason gang worked near Eathie. Why did Miller, upon discovering the Jurassic nodules bearing ammonites, bivalves and plant fragments, not by accident open any of the Devonian ones that also litter the beach there? Miller discovered his world-famous Devonian fish at Cromarty in 1830 before revisiting Eathie and proving the existence of the fish-bearing strata there also. This may be explained in terms of the search image that Miller had developed to aid him pick out likely candidates to interrogate with the blow of a hammer (Knell & Taylor 2003). Fieldwork and fossil collecting at Eathie Haven has revealed to my mind what these search images might have been. In the first instance, the Upper Jurassic nodules tend to be light grey in colour, smoothly rounded and occasionally exhibiting fragments of

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ammonite shell material. They are heavily bio-eroded by a number of marine organisms including the common piddock (Pholas dactylus), boring sponges such as Cliona celata and the delicate bristle worm Polydora ciliata. The Devonian fish-bearing nodules, on the other hand, tend to be much flatter, more obviously laminated and yellow-brown in coloration once exposed to salt water. Although they are bio-eroded, they do not suffer to the same extent as the Jurassic concretions due to their lower carbonate content. Material from the fish bed can also take the appearance of amalgamated nodules forming laminar bodies of calcareous material. The geographical setting and stratigraphic level of the Devonian quarry in which Miller worked lend another possible explanation as to why he encountered the Jurassic fossils in the first instance. As the quarry was extracting stone for building work, through blasting by the use of gunpowder, it is likely that the low-lying 'orange sandstone' (as Miller named it) was being worked. This underlies some of the foreshore near the mouth of the Eathie burn. The orange sandstone contains occasional pebbles, but is quite distinct from the underlying pebbly conglomerate, and, of course, far more suitable for building purposes. At this level in the stratigraphy Miller would not have encountered the only fossiliferous beds of the Devonian sequence, the discrete 1.5 mthick fish bed unit. The orange sandstone lies at a level below this fish bed. The yellow saliferous sandstone, lying directly above the fish bed sequence, is once more markedly pebbly and forms the fossil sea cliffs to the NE of the mouth of the Eathie burn. As such, there would have been no reason for him to suspect that the Devonian sequence was fossiliferous, and the finding of a Jurassic ammonite on his first day there would most certainly have fully occupied his mind. The discovery of fish-bearing concretions of Devonian age was, as Oldroyd (1996) points out, theory driven based on his knowledge of Eathie, which made him search for similar strata on the other side of the South Sutor. He was looking for additional examples of Jurassic exposure and, instead, uncovered a sequence of Middle Devonian sediments. After a spell working in various localities in northern Scotland, Miller travelled south to the area around Edinburgh in 1824. There he worked at carving stone on site for the building of Niddrie House. The stone was supplied by local quarries, probably in the Carboniferous strata, where he encountered fossils that would foreshadow his future fieldwork. He mentions this in his autobiography My Schools and Schoolmasters (Miller 1854, p. 297): I was now for the first time located on the Carboniferous System: the stone at which I wrought was intercalated among the working coal-seams, and abounded in well-

marked impressions of the more robust vegetables of the period - stigmaria, sigillaria, calamitea and lepidodendra.

Bad health, perhaps brought about through a combination of the occupational hazard of inhaling stone dust coupled with poor living conditions, affected Miller's lungs to such an extent that he left the Lothians in 1825 and travelled back once more to Cromarty. Here he undertook work carving inscriptions on gravestones, for instance in Cromarty East Kirk, at Nigg and in the churchyard at Rosemarkie (S. Seright pers. comm. 2002). This allowed him to work up the finds that he had made so far in his spare time and prospect for new sites yielding Devonian fossil fish. When an opportunity came in 1834 to work in the newly established branch of the Commercial Bank in Cromarty, Miller accepted. He travelled to Linlithgow in West Lothian for training. Living in Linlithgow, Miller obviously had some opportunity to engage in geological investigation as both his written records and specimens in his collections demonstrate. In a series of lectures delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, and later collected together in Sketchbook of Popular Geology, Miller (1859, p. 372) describes the discovery of charcoal fragments in a block of the vitrified fort at Knock Farril, near Strathpeffer, Ross-shire. He compares their appearance and setting to a Carboniferous fossil he had previously collected in the neighbourhood of Linlithgow: On some other masses there was impressed, as if by a seal, the stamp of pieces of charcoal; and so sharply was the impression retained, that I could detect on the vitreous surface the mark of the yearly growths, and even of the medullary rays, of the wood... These last reminded me of specimens not unfrequent among the trap rocks [basaltic lavas] of the Carboniferous and Oolitic [Middle or Upper Jurassic] systems.

The last episode in Hugh Miller's varied working career began in 1840, when he was invited by Henry Dunlop and Robert Paul to become the editor of The Witness newspaper (Sutherland 2002, p. 61). They were members of what would become the Free Church of Scotland, opposed to the intrusion of ministers upon congregations through patronage. This particular Church conflict came to a head in 1843 with the Disruption, and the walking out of ministers from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. A parallel system of church buildings and social infrastructure had to be funded by the congregations. Miller reported the events of the day in the pages of The Witness, and was portrayed taking notes in the foreground of the 'Disruption Painting' by David Octavius Hill. This painting now hangs in the headquarters of the Free Church of Scotland on the Mound, Edinburgh.

HUGH MILLER AND PALAEOBOTANY

Even in Edinburgh, with a steady job, the Miller household moved around. Their first settled house was in Sylvan Place just to the south of the open parkland known now as 'The Meadows'. This was previously a remnant post-glacial lake called the Boroughloch that Miller wrote about in detail in a chapter of his posthumously published book Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood (Miller 1863, pp. 6-10). In 1854 the Miller family moved to the Victorian seaside resort of Portobello to the east of the city of Edinburgh, primarily on doctor's orders. Their home at Shrub Mount (much of which still exists between numbers 76 and 82 on Portobello High Street) included a small room at the back that Hugh converted into a museum and workshop for the arrangement and display of his various fossil finds. Miller, always voracious for copy, serialized many of his geological articles in the pages of The Witness, but, as Oldroyd (1996) points out, these made up only a minor component, perhaps as little as a tenth of 1 % of the total. The Old Red Sandstone, as well as Cruise of the Betsey, first appeared in the pages of The Witness before being published as books in their own right. Every year, he would take holiday time away from the newspaper office and press and go on his travels around Scotland, more often than not stopping by Cromarty to visit relatives. These weeks in the summer provided further opportunity to explore, geologize and write articles such as those that led to The Cruise of the Betsey and others. After Miller's death, his widow, Lydia Miller, strove to publish much of the material that remained in the 6 years following, for example Sketchbook of Popular Geology. This was to the detriment of her health and the subject is comprehensively dealt with in Sutherland (2002).

Collecting style Preliminary assessment of the fossil material in the Hugh Miller collection housed in the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, provides a valuable insight into Miller's collecting drive. In the collection as a whole (vertebrate, invertebrate and palaeobotanical) it is apparent that Miller collected much of the available material from a site, not just the well-preserved or aesthetically pleasing specimens, as part of an on-going study. Where he travelled on foot, investigating the geology of an area without particular emphasis on the fossil remains, for example on the Killen Burn, near Avoch, he did not collect material merely for its own sake but in this case to provide stratigraphic correlation of a fish bed (Miller 1858, p. 331). Although Miller housed all of his fossil material in a small museum room at Shrub Mount,

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Portobello, there is no evidence that he was collecting for show or prestige. This was very much a working collection, the factual database upon which he based many of his written articles. The same practical attitude to fossil collecting is demonstrated in written accounts of Miller's meeting with other collectors. One such incident occurred at the Gamrie Fish Bed (Miller 1858, pp. 240-241). While travelling through the country from Aberdeen to Cromarty, Miller passed by the village of Gardenstone on the Moray coast. Interested in visiting the Old Red Sandstone fish bed in the stream valley, he was called over by two men busily disinterring fish-bearing nodules from the exposure. After being asked whether he recognized any of the finds, and being able to name each and every one in detail, Miller discovered that the collectors': knowledge of the formation of the ichthyolites had been chiefly derived . .. from a certain little treatise on the 'Old Red Sandstone', rather popular than scientific, which he named. I of course claimed no acquaintance with the work; and the conversation went on.

There is evidence that Miller did exchange some specimens with other collectors. He did send fossil material for the appraisal of other scientists. He, by no means, hoarded his collection, but made it available for the scrutiny of others. That said, he did take some precautions to ensure the security of the collection. Bayne (1871) describes how Miller's neighbour in Portobello, Lord Kinnaird, supplied Miller with a humane (toothless) mantrap, to guard his ever-growing collection housed in the small museum and workshop at Shrub Mount. The Miller collection contains fossils from countries that he never visited in person. Fossil specimens in his collection from abroad (South Africa, Australia and Canada) were presumably sent to him as exchanges or gifts from people following his articles and books, perhaps through the network of Free Church of Scotland missionary and evangelical workers overseas. Miller bought at least some fossils to improve his collection, or to fill in gaps in the stratigraphic intervals to which his own investigations were focused. This may not account for a large proportion of the collection, but it does suggest at some point, perhaps later in his life, he had sufficient financial resources to take the opportunity to acquire fossil material that he did not have the time to collect for himself. Hugh Miller's attitude to fossil collecting was therefore one of deeming every specimen important, no matter how fragmentary or incomplete. Miller (1859, p. 180) identified collectors (and presumably included himself) as: 'a class of people sent into the world, to labour instinctively as pioneers in physical sciences, without knowing why'. He was gathering together scientific data rather than

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some decor collection of curiosities. Smiles (1878, p. 105) reproduced one of the letters between Hugh Miller and Robert Dick of Thurso where Dick talking about gentleman geologists said: They have repeatedly gone down to Thurso East and returned empty. And why? For this simple reason, they were afraid to fyle [dirty] their trousers!'. This suggests that to these two collectors, appearance was not everything; it was the material collected which was important. These were men familiar with the practicalities of fossil collecting in the field. After his death in 1856, Hugh Miller's fossil collection came up for sale. The collection was bought partly by public subscription for the forerunner of what is now the National Museums of Scotland (£500). The other half of the money was provided by the government on the grounds of the national importance of this collection, and so that it would stay in Scotland rather than go to an overseas bidder (Smith 1862). The list of subscribers makes for interesting reading with many luminaries of the geological and palaeontological world listed (Taylor & Gostwick 2003). Amongst these are Sir Roderick I. Murchison (Director of the Geological Survey), Sir Charles Lyell, Sir William E. Logan (Provincial Geologist of Canada), Robert Chambers (editor of Chambers's Journal and author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', Chambers 1844.), Professor Simpson (pioneer of chloroform), Rev. Dr Guthrie (Minister of St John's Free Church, Edinburgh, where Miller attended for Sunday family worship), Robert Paul who invited Miller to take on the editorship of The Witness, Sir Philip Egerton (describer of fossil fish), the Very Rev. Principal Cunningham (Free Church College) and Archibald Geikie of the Geological Survey. Other notable subscribers were the Duke of Argyll (author of a paper in 1851 detailing the Tertiary plant beds of the Isle of Mull) and Lord Kinnaird (one of Hugh Miller's neighbours in Portobello).

Hugh Miller's fossil localities Hugh Miller's fossil collecting, by necessity, had to fit around his working life and this in itself restricted the areas to which he could travel. The preceding section demonstrates that, throughout his working life, he had a varying effective radius dependent on his circumstances at any one time. Of course, fossil collecting on a Sunday was not an option for this staunch Calvinist presbyterian, so he would have been restricted to times during the winters off from being a stonemason, the evenings and part of the weekend from his other jobs. Sutherland (2002, p. 66) quotes from Harriet Ross's journal in which she mentions that Hugh Miller, whilst living at Sylvan Place, to the south of the

Table 1. Stratigraphic breakdown of the Hugh Miller palaeobotany collection. Geological period

Number of specimens

Quaternary Palaeogene Jurassic Carboniferous Devonian

28 17 262

257 27

Meadows, would write at his desk all day and into the night. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons he would go for a long walk in the country, and this is presumably the time he used for fossil-hunting expeditions. Miller was very much an early proponent of 'geology on your doorstep'. In his various writings he repeatedly turns his attention to the value of observations made around his hometown of Cromarty. To this extent it is obvious just how influential his childhood experiences there were. Although Miller travelled widely throughout Scotland, and ventured into England, he never strayed further than the shores of the United Kingdom. His travels through England during more than 2 months in the Autumn of 1845 are outlined in Miller (1847). The following section lists the plant-bearing localities that Hugh Miller collected from in their Stratigraphic context and gives details of their relative importance in the collection. Old Red Sandstone (Devonian) Miller's fossil-collecting forays around and about his home in Cromarty on the Black Isle led to the discovery of many of the fossil fishes for which he is rightly remembered. However, Lang (1925, p. 254) indicated that: 'Almost the first fossil plants to be described and figured from the Middle Old Red Sandstone were those discovered by Hugh Miller'. Along the shoreline, and in amongst the wooded 'dens' (incised stream valleys), Miller recorded the presence of occasional beds rich in what he termed Psilophyton. That said, Miller's Devonian fossils comprise only 4.5% of the total palaeobotanical content of his collection (Table 1). Does this reveal a collecting bias on Miller's part? Preliminary results from fieldwork conducted during summer 2002 suggests that the fossil remains at Miller's classic Black Isle Devonian sites are restricted to the fish bed lithologies, sediments representing relatively high water level in the Middle Devonian Lake Orcadie. Indeed, one plant specimen in the type and figured collection, NMS G. 1859.33.2101 (see the Appendix), occupies the

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Fig. 3. NMS G.I859.33.2123. Middle Devonian plant remains (?cladoxyl) from the Middle Devonian of Cromarty, Ross-shire, Scotland. The section was probably cut and polished by George Sanderson on behalf of Hugh Miller to reveal detail of internal structures. The scale bar is 10 mm.

centre of a split fish bed nodule from the foreshore locality just east of Cromarty. Plant remains in this setting are exceedingly uncommon and are outnumbered by far by the remains of the various acanthodian and arthrodire fish. Therefore, it appears that a preservational rather than a strictly collecting bias may explain this distribution of plant remains for the fish beds. Miller (1841, p. 117) comments on this distribution: The deposition seems to have taken place far from land; and this lignite, if in reality such, had probably drifted far ere it at length became weightier than the supporting fluid, and sank'. However, the Psilophyton beds (one of which occurs as beach worn slabs at Eathie Haven) are not as well represented as might be expected from Miller's writings. Perhaps this indicates a preoccupation with collecting fossil fish at this stage in his palaeontological career? It would certainly bear out the statement made by Miller (1854, pp. 163-164) where he said: But then, with magnificient ammonites and belemnites, and large well-marked lignites, to be had in abundance at Eathie just for the laying open and the picking up, how could I think of giving myself to disinter what seemed to be mere broken fragments of Zostera! [Zostera or eelgrass being an intertidal plant.]

Miller's intimate familiarity with the Devonian flora and geological succession in the vicinity of Cromarty would have led to practical application had his good advice been available to one George, first Earl of Cromarty and a local landowner of many years before. Torrens (2003) discussed the early history of coal prospecting and exploration in the

UK, and explained some of the obstacles landowners had to face. At a time when the use of fossils as stratigraphic level indicators was in its infancy, the use of fossil beds to indicate relative ages of sediments was not lost on Hugh Miller. Miller (1841, p. 193) noticed that in one of the deeply wooded ravines close to the town, carbonaceous plant impressions were abundant. These would have been of the form he referred to as Psilophyton and may have been taken to indicate the presence of coal in the strata. This is not so far fetched a theory as the nearby coastal Brora coal (of Jurassic age) might have initiated the prospecting venture. However, by listing the likely strata that the miners would have encountered in their abortive borehole, Miller demonstrates an excellent understanding of the stratigraphic positioning of the fish bed lithologies. The site of the boring is now marked by the Coal-heugh well, that from that time until the present has discharged water which stains the stream bed with red iron oxide (Miller 1841, p. 194). Miller's observation on this venture of pouring money down a hole in the ground was suitably familiar in tone: 'In short, there might be some possibility of penetrating to the central fire, but none whatever of their ever reaching a vein of coal'! One Devonian plant specimen stands out and is worthy of further note and description. This is a section of an axis collected by Miller from the foreshore at Cromarty (Fig. 3). Indeed, this may be a portion of the fossil that Miller (1859, p. 201) mentions as one which had been ground down, polished and subjected to the lens:

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Many years ago at Cromarty, I detected, in one of its oldest fossiliferous beds, a fragment of a cone-bearing tree, remarkable as being the oldest piece of wood ever found, that, when subjected to the microscope, exhibits the true lignaceous structure.

Preliminary examination by J. Hilton (formerly National Museums of Scotland) suggests that, although the outer surface resembles that of a cladoxyl, the lack of internal preserved anatomy does not indicate cladoxylopsid affinity. Throughout Miller's written work there are numerous references to his using optical instruments such as hand lenses and microscopes. He also describes having thin sections of both fish tooth and fossil wood prepared for him by a lapidary in Edinburgh (Morrison-Low & Nuttall 2003). Although Miller was not a pioneer in this field, he was at the cutting edge of using the newly developed technique to learn more about the fossil finds he made. Miller's location in Edinburgh meant that he was in touch with innovators such as William Nicol (Morrison-Low 1992). The remaining Middle Devonian plant fossils in the collection originate from the area around Thurso in Caithness, or the Bay of Skaill in Orkney. In Thurso, Hugh Miller was in contact with the baker, amateur geologist and botanist Robert Dick (Miller 1857, p. 347). Indeed, the two men evidently exchanged specimens, as well as visiting and collecting from sites together in quarries around Caithness. The material from Skaill originated from a fossil collecting trip detailed by Miller (1857, p. 424). However, in both cases, the fish and plant fossils were not restricted to concretions. The Skaill locality is an exposure of the Sandwick Fish Bed (Eifelian-Givetian boundary) (Cleal & Thomas 1995). It is now known that such finds are distributed throughout what Donovan (1980) refers to as 'Lithological Association A', indicative of a deep lacustrine setting perhaps with a degree of thermal stratification affecting the water column. The few Devonian plant fossils in the collection from the Midland Valley of Scotland originate from quarry workings around Carmyllie, near Arbroath, and include examples of Parka decipiens.

Carboniferous localities Exploitation of resources, such as limestone, oil shale, coal and fireclay for black band iron ore smelting, led to many excavations in Midlothian and West Lothian. Sandstone quarrying for the Edinburgh building boom also provided exposures and gave widespread opportunity to collect. Hugh Miller investigated many of these actively working sites and his collection reflects this.

The Lower Carboniferous Burdiehouse limestone. Situated to the south of the city of Edinburgh, and now lying just outwith the city bypass road, the limestone quarries of Burdiehouse, when active, provided a rich source of plant and animal fossils (Cleal & Thomas 1995). The very fine-grained freshwater limestone preserves palaeobotanical specimens in exquisite detail as delicate carbonaceous compressions. Most numerous amongst the assemblage are specimens of Sphenopteris affinis (Fig. 4a), Lepidophloios sp. and various species of Lepidostrobus, but uncommon forms such as Sphenophyllum tenerrimum and Sphenopteridium crassum are also represented (see the Appendix). The Burdiehouse limestone belongs to the Calciferous Sandstone Series (Oil Shale Group) and is Visean in age. Lyon (1866) details that at least some of the Burdiehouse material in Miller's collection, the fish remains in particular, were bought in from the collection of a (deceased) Mr Campbell. This may indicate that Hugh Miller did not have access to the site, perhaps Campbell had had exclusive collecting rights from the locality. Miller (1857) mentions the Burdiehouse plants on a number of occasions, and, in fact, based his reconstruction of Sphenopteris for the frontispiece of The Testimony of the Rocks on fossils from Burdiehouse, but he does not actually say whether or not he ever visited the site. Upper Carboniferous: Musselburgh. Fossil plant material from Musselburgh constitutes some 19% of the total palaeobotanical collection. This is surprising as the Burdiehouse fossils, perhaps due to their exquisite state of preservation, are far more widely known, yet numerically make up far less of the collection (see Table 2). The Musselburgh material is lithologically consistent and this suggests that it was all collected from a single site. Sutherland (2002), quotes Bayne in saying that Miller, after finishing his writing for the day, would 'saunter about the hills of Braid, or Arthur-seat, explore for the thousandth time the Musselburgh shore or the Granton quarries'. It seems likely that whatever locality the plant fossils came from, they were collected from the same site over a period, the duration of which we can only guess at. The fern Alethopteris decurrens (see Fig. 4b) dominates the collected flora, but Sphenopteris, Mariopteris and Neuropteris are also well represented.

Scottish Jurassic Miller investigated many of the Jurassic sites on the Moray Firth coastline of northern Scotland. The thin sliver of Jurassic rocks bordering the coastline is fault controlled, and is related to the Great Glen and Helmsdale fault lines (Trewin & Hurst 1993). They

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Fig. 4. Carboniferous plant fossils in the Hugh Miller Collection: (a) NMS G. 1859.33. 3235. Sphenopteris affine Lindley and Hutton from the Lower Carboniferous (Calcareous Sandstone Series, Oil Shale Group) Burdiehouse Limestone, Burdiehouse, Midlothian, Scotland. The scale bar is 50 mm. (b) NMS G.I859.33.3236. Alethopteris decurrens from the Upper Carboniferous (Lower Westphalian D) of Musselburgh, Scotland. The scale bar is 10 mm.

present particular obstacles to fieldwork in that many of the sites are tide-dependent and of limited exposure. Plant fossils are rare, but where they occur they do so in abundance (Fig. 5a-d). Seward (1911, p. 650) provides a useful summary of Miller's Jurassic finds. Eathie. Some of Hugh Miller's earliest fossil finds were made from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) strata on the foreshore of Eathie Haven, near Cromarty. He was first attracted to the beautifully preserved ammonites to be found held within hard calcareous nodules hosted by the black shales. However, at some point he discovered what he termed 'lignite' or fossil wood within the nodules (Fig. 6a and b). As well as the woody branches of

Jurassic vegetation, the fine tracery of foliage often came to light. Personal fieldwork and collecting at this locality suggests to me some clues as to what came to reside in Hugh Miller's collection and why. Ammonite-bearing concretions are round or ovoid in outline, the plant remains occur within large, elongate concretions. The majority of the ammonitebearing concretions show evidence of intense bio-erosion over the whole surface suggesting a relatively long residence time in the shingle. Concretions of a similar appearance are difficult to come by now, perhaps due to the systematic clearing of the site by Miller and subsequent collectors! The holotype of the enigmatic cone, Williamsonia scotica, originated from concretions such as these at Eathie. Oldroyd (1996, p. 103) outlines the story

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Table 2. Locality breakdown of the Hugh Miller palaeobotany collection. Locality

Number

Helmsdale, Sutherland Eathie, Ross-shire Dalkeith, Midlothian Cromarty, Ross-shire Airdrie, Lanarkshire Brora, Sutherland Gilmerton, Midlothian Granton Isle of Sheppey, Kent Musselburgh, Midlothian Newcastle-u-Tyne Portobello, Midlothian Sguirr of Eigg, Isle of Eigg Wardie Burdiehouse, Midlothian Caithness Carmyllie, Angus Edinburgh Kiltorcan Joppa Linlithgow, West Lothian Shetland Loanhead, Midlothian Midland Valley Orkney Rotherfield Prestonhaugh Shandwick Thurso, Caithness Water of Leith, Midlothian Unknown

218 35 2 5 1 9 1 2 1 109 1 30 16 2 95 1 1 15 1 3 3 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 4 11 10

Total

591

behind this particular specimen and identifies it as possibly belonging to the class Cycadeoidea. The true cycads sit within the class Cycadopsida and this reflects the taxonomic opinion that from Miller's time to the present Williamsonia scotica is still of uncertain affinities. Helmsdale. Although the Eathie plants are relatively well known, they are by no means numerous. The plant material collected from the coast near Helmsdale, Sutherland, forms the greatest proportion of the Jurassic material. Typical examples are illustrated in Figure 5a-d. The strata exposed on the shoreline NE of the village of Helmsdale consist of a sequence of Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) deep-water argillaceous sediments interrupted periodically by influxes of coarse clastic material. These sediments form the classic 'boulder beds' sequences described by Bailey & Weir (1932). The sequence is interpreted as having formed as a result of sediment being periodi-

cally swept off a narrow coastal shelf, down the face of a faulted underwater escarpment and into relatively deep water where anoxic shale rocks were being deposited. Plant fossils identified in Miller's collection from Helmsdale are all carbonaceous compression fossils (rather than the nodular preservation typical of Eathie), preserved in a finely laminated light blue-grey carbonate-cemented mudstone. The remarkably consistent thickness of the slabs bearing the plant remains suggests that all this material originated from one horizon. Cladophlebis denticulata is the most numerous plant species represented. Fieldwork led by the National Museums of Scotland (October 2003) on the coastline to the north of Helmsdale suggests that the sequence is predominantly clastic in nature, but occasional beds containing plant fossils do occur and are represented by orange-stained calcareous cobbles in the shingle. Van der Burgh & Van Konijnenburg-Van Cittert (1984) described a varied and rich floral assemblage from a site to the south of Helmsdale, near Allt na Cuile and Lothbeg Point. The material here originated from fissile sandstones and shales interbedded with porous quartzose sandstones (Trewin & Hurst 1993, p. 27). The Helmsdale and Lothbeg Point localities therefore appear to be quite distinct, based purely on lithological grounds. Seward (1912) records collections of plant fossils from Culgower Bay to the south of Helmsdale, made by Marcus Gunn, and this is also worth considering as a likely source for Miller's fossils. In addition to the carbonaceous compressions from this bed, the shingle on the shoreline north of Helmsdale yielded, and continues to yield, permineralized portions of trees. Miller (1857, p. 375) relates how at one time these Oolitic fossils were so numerous that they were collected along with the large rolled colonies of the coral Isastrea and burnt in kilns for lime! Miller (1859, p. 247) mentions subjecting the permineralized Jurassic wood material to some scrutiny: My microscope, a botanist's, was of no great power; but by using its three glasses together, and carefully grinding down small patches of the weathered wood until it began to darken, I could ascertain with certainty, from the structure of the cellular tissue . . . that they all belonged to the coniferae.

Bayne (1871, p. 360) reproduced one of Miller's letters to his wife Lydia, in which he talked about spending the whole day from 9 o'clock in the morning to 5 o'clock in the afternoon on the beach at Helmsdale, and discovering a very large permineralized log. However, in this account there is no mention made of collecting from the plant-bearing limestone bed.

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Fig. 5. Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) plant remains from Helmsdale, East Sutherland, Scotland (all scale bars are 10 mm), (a) NMS G.I859.33.4357 Cladophlebus denticulata (Brongniart). Note the Recent bio-erosion typical of these calcareous beds, in this case circular Pholas borings, (b) NMS G.I859.33.4356. Part of the frond of a fossil cycadalian. (c) NMS G. 1859.33.4361 Brachyphyllum sp. (d) NMS G.1967.35.11. Leafy shoot of a fossil conifer.

Brora. Plant fossils from the vicinity of Brora, East Sutherland, are easily recognizable within the Hugh Miller collection. They are all preserved as threedimensional internal casts within a fine, pale cream coloured sandstone. The Jurassic sequence here is slightly older than at both Helmsdale and Eathie Haven. Sandstone from Clynelish quarry belongs to the Brora Arenaceous Formation and is uppermost

Callovian-early Oxfordian (Upper Jurassic) in age. Miller (1859, p. 257) describes the working at Braambury quarry, near Brora in Sutherland, and in his terminology refers to it as Upper Oolite. Wearing two metaphorical hats, he first describes the fine fossils preserved in the sandstone, and then points out how annoying these inclusions are to the quarrymen hewing building stone from the area.

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Fig. 6. (a) and (b) NMS G.I859.33.4359. Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) permineralized conifer wood from Eathie Haven, near Cromarty, Ross-shire, Scotland. The fossil is three-dimensionally preserved in a calcareous concretion. (The scale bar is 20 mm), (b) As above, but viewed in end section. The scale bar is 10 mm. (c) NMS G. 1859.33.5020. 'Pinites' eiggensis wood Palaeogene (Palaeocene) from the Sgurr of Eigg, Isle of Eigg, Scotland. The scale bar is 10 mm.

Bramberry Hill [GR 895 049 (Brora Sheet NC 80/90)] sits to the NW of the town of Brora. Two quarries are indicated on the side of the hill on the OS map. Only future fieldwork in the area will determine the more likely site from which Miller collected his fossils.

Scottish Tertiary Miller's collections of what we now recognize as Palaeogene (Palaeocene) age conifer wood (Fig. 6c) made on the Isle of Eigg were only possible at the

time through his visiting and staying with his childhood friend, the Rev. John Swanson, Free Church minister to Eigg and the other Small Isles. Swanson and Miller had shared fossil collecting expeditions back in their home town of Cromarty. Swanson's floating manse, 'The Free Church Yacht Betsey', provided a somewhat unusual combined field vehicle and study base for Hugh Miller as documented in the book The Cruise of the Betsey (Miller 1858). Hudson (2003) describes in detail Hugh Miller's visits to the Isle of Eigg and the reader is referred to this work for more information, particularly with regard to localities and stratigraphic sequences.

HUGH MILLER AND PALAEOBOTANY

The main palaeobotanical interest on the Isle of Eigg came from the preservation of silicified wood in conglomeratic strata underlying the famous Sgurr of Eigg, a pitchstone flow infilling Palaeogene landscape topography. During Miller's time, it was thought that the whole sequence was Jurassic in age, rather than the younger Tertiary that it is now thought to be. The previous discovery of fossil wood from below the Sgurr of Eigg seems to have drawn Miller to investigate the site. Hudson (2002) suggests that the value of this Palaeogene wood has still not been adequately explored and points out that Miller's discussion of tree rings anticipates their modern use as investigative tools of ancient climates. Furthermore, Hudson (2003) discusses the importance of 'Pinites' eiggensis, and hints that other plant species may yet be identified from material collected from under the Sgurr. We also gain an appreciation of the techniques Miller was trying out to assist in understanding the fossils he collected. Miller mentions having prepared glass-mounted thin sections of the wood, and quotes the work of Witham, and Lindley and Hutton. In Sketchbook of Popular Geology (Miller 1859, p. 138): In the first place, the annual rings themselves told me, when exposed to transmitted light in the microscope, that the winters of that time gave vegetation as decided a check as our winters now. The tender woody cells were first dwarfed and thickened in their formation, by the strengthening of the autumnal cold, and then for a season they ceased to form altogether.

Post-glacial clay deposits. Throughout his career Hugh Miller never neglected the investigation of the action and agency of ice in the geological record. His landscape descriptions rarely missed out some reference to the last Ice Age, be it through the description of erosion, deposition or its effect on changing sea level. The last of these was obviously of interest to someone who had grown up by the seashore, had observed the ebb and flood of the tides, and knew what even a modest rise in average sea level would mean for the present coastline and its inhabitants. At Portobello, Joppa and South Queensferry (all localities around the Firth of Forth), near Edinburgh, Miller collected a variety of fossils from the postglacial clays. In particular, the brick pits surrounding the Figgate Burn near Portobello received significant attention. Again, the geography of these collecting trips is worth noting. These sites were extremely close to his house in Portobello, no more than a 5 minute walk away. He collected many examples of fossil tree branches from the clays as well as the more typical shelly faunas, including examples of the mollusc Scrobicularia. In what is one of the most detailed descriptions of the post-glacial deposits of

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Portobello, Miller (1863) describes the basin as being about 1 mile in length and in breadth with a maximum thickness of over 100ft at the Figgate Burn estuary. His account reveals that he had actually sought permission from the owner of the Portobello brick clay pit, a Mr Allan Livingstone, to work the fossil beds. At this site he found trunks of oak and alder, and continues (p. 100) by talking about how fossil deposits such as these could be used as evidence for the presence of indigenous species to the British Isles, rather than those introduced subsequently by man. Miller then points to trace fossils in the form of circular borings in the wood as evidence of the presence of wood-boring grubs thousands of years ago. In the closing remarks to this chapter (p. 106) Miller uses a combination of fossil evidence and sedimentology, coupled with knowledge of tidal effects, to suggest relative height of sea level at the time of deposition.

Other localities Much of the rest of Hugh Miller's palaeobotanical collection is made up of solitary specimens from sites, perhaps representing an afternoon browse, rather than the systematic search and collection programme that Miller seems to have employed at other times. There are few plant specimens from outwith the UK, a pattern that is repeated in both the vertebrate and invertebrate portions of the collection. These were probably sent to Miller either in exchange or by readers of his articles, keen to supply him with new material from their own areas (Table 2).

The palaeobotanical legacy of Hugh Miller's work Visualization and mass media Scattered throughout much of Miller's written work are extremely vivid word pictures as he strives to explain and demonstrate what past environments looked like in his 'minds eye': visions which he wished to share with his readership. Oldroyd (1996), for this reason, identifies Miller as writing in a highly personal style with the educated lay public as his audience in mind. He also points out that Miller wrote to promote understanding through everyday experience, presumably garnered from his vast body of experience of natural history. Miller's imaginary stroll through the Catamites forests of the Carboniferous is one of the most powerful of these word pictures. It occurs in the collection of lectures published as Sketchbook of Popular Geology (Miller 1859, p. 84):

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From a foreground of weltering sea I could mark a scattered archipelago of waste uninhabited islands, picturesquely roughed by wood and rock; and near where the Scottish capital now stands, a submarine volcano sent forth its slim column of mingled smoke and vapour into the sky. And then there rose in quick succession scenes of the old Carboniferous forests: long withdrawing lakes, fringed with dense thickets of the green Calamite, tall and straight as the masts of pinnaces . . . or glades of thickest verdure, where the tree-fern mingled its branch-like fronds, with the hirstute [sic] arms of the gigantic club-moss . . . .

He continues this theme in a later lecture (Lecture Four) but this time refers to imagining the scene from the point of view of one of the Lilliputians in Swift's Gullivers Travels (Miller 1859, p. 173): And while I thus thought, or rather dreamed, for my Lilliputian companions, I became for the time a Lilliputian myself, - saw the minute in nature as if through a magnifying-glass, - roamed in fancy under ferns which had shot up into trees, - and saw the dark cones of the Equisetaceae stand up over their spiky branches some six yards or so above my head.

In the third lecture, Miller describes a Palaeogene forest setting where the amber entombment of plants and animals is taking place: The hot sun is riding high over the recesses of one of these deep woods, never yet trodden by human foot, and lighting up the waved green . . . where the forest terminates in a brown primeval wilderness, the sunbeams fall with dazzling brightness on the trunk of a stately tree, just a little touched with decay; and it reflects the light far and wide, and gleams in strong contrast with the gloom of the bosky recesses beyond . . .Tis a decaying pine of the stateliest size, bleeding amber. The insects of the hour flutter around it; and when, beguiled by the grateful perfume, they touch its deceitful surface... and by dying they become immortal

Such ability to conjure up pictures in the readers' or listeners' mind is one reason why Miller's work held such appeal, both in his own time and in subsequent generations. At a time when mass media consisted of nothing more than the newspaper and magazine printing presses, these fantastic journeys into the past history of the Earth must have enthralled his readership, as television programmes on natural history (both past and present) do today. Stevenson (20020, p. 91) points out that Miller was an educationalist, opening people's minds to the visible world, and the way in which he did this was through the written word. Oldroyd (1996, p. 103) states that Miller gave increasing attention to palaeobotany in his later writings. These were intended for a wider audience than the technical scientific journals of the day would have reached and he certainly did not neglect

palaeobotany. As well as collecting, figuring and describing fossil plants, he had also started developing ideas about the distribution of plants. This is reflected in some work which he mentions in The Cruise of the Betsey (Miller 1858, p. 73). However, as in many instances in Miller's writing, we cannot be sure whether this is an idea that he has developed through his own observation, or whether it is in fact something which he had read, agreed with and reproduced in his article without formal reference to the original source. Here Miller explains Arctic floral survivors in terms of glaciers, 'island' communities and the last Ice Age: It seems at first a curious problem, difficult of solution, that widely separated mountain summits should possess the same alpine plants . . . while not a trace of them appears on the lower elevations between. But it simplifies the case to conceive of these alpine plants as the vegetable aborigines of the country, compelled by climatal invasion to shelter in its last bleak retreats

Natural theology Hugh Miller expounded natural theology, the study of God through created works. Footprints of the Creator first published in 1849 was Hugh Miller's response to the anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and other Writings with its obvious neo-Lamarckian, progressionist evolutionary arguments. This publication was later ascribed to Chambers (1844). Testimony of the Rocks (Miller 1857) further underlined Miller's standpoint, also clearly expressed in Sketchbook of Popular Geology (p. 54) when he states: We can now no more hold, as geologists, that the plants and animals of the existing creation came into being only a few hours or a few days previous to man, that the world itself came into being only six thousand years ago . . . .

In Footprints of the Creator Miller (1857, pp. 212-229) devotes a chapter to the discussion of the consequences of the Lamarckian hypothesis of the origin of plants. Although believing in Divine Creation, Miller was obviously no Biblical literalist and recognized that geological time was required to explain the evidence around him both in terms of rock structure and enclosed flora and fauna. He begins his argument by pointing out that 20 years previously (the 1830s) it was generally believed that there was no evidence of a fossil record for trees further back than the Liassic [Miller's Jurassic]. The Carboniferous vegetation of Brongniart consisted of gigantic ferns and clubmosses, which had not suffered what Miller termed 'degradation', a reduction in their size as a consequence of a fall from their perfectly created state.

HUGH MILLER AND PALAEOBOTANY

Miller's reading of the developing knowledge of the fossil record demonstrated that trees could be traced back through various Upper and Lower Carboniferous strata and localities. He uses a particularly everyday image here appealing directly to his readership: It seems strange to one who derives his supply of domestic fuel from the Dalkeith and Falkirk coal-fields, that the Carboniferous flora could ever have been described as devoid of trees. (Miller 1857, p. 182.)

The Testimony of the Rocks Miller completed the proofs to his book The Testimony of the Rocks the day before his death in 1856. Consequently, it was published posthumously through the efforts of his widow, Lydia Miller, with the assistance of Professor Fleming (Professor of Natural History at the Free Church College). The book consists of 12 lectures, all of which are aimed at providing answers to the various questions being furiously contested in debates (at the time and by some people to this day) about the science of Geology and the Bible. These were primarily concerned with Biblical literalism, dealing with the Creation account of Genesis, the Flood (or Noachian Deluge) and the age of the Earth. Miller examined these on the basis of the geological evidence that he had collected himself and had read about throughout his lifetime. As the Rev. Philip Foster states in his editorial preface to the recently reprinted edition in 2001, some of the anti-geologist arguments are still being used today in some modern religious books in the United States. Hugh Miller's response to these arguments still has great relevance, and this was one of the reasons that prompted the issuing of this reprinted edition. Miller illustrates his various points using fossil flora and fauna, as well as the rock record. In the first of the lectures he discusses the palaeontological history of plants. This begins with a discussion of the classification of living organisms, both plants and animals, and then goes on to discuss the development of schemes of botanical classification. He then discusses the classification system of Lindley and points out how this classification fits neatly with the sequence revealed in the geological history of the Earth. After a similar potted history of the classification of animals up until the time he was writing, Miller goes on to describe the various first occurrences of plants in the fossil record from the Silurian until the present day. He dallies on the plants of the Coal Measures, presumably through familiarity with the fossils he was able to collect in the Lothians of Scotland, before launching off into the palaeobotany of the Oolitic (Mid to Upper Jurassic) rocks.

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The chapter closes with a discussion of the plants of the Tertiary and a practical exercise in the use of palaeobotany in large-scale stratigraphic dating. Miller shows how he deduced the age of an unknown fossil wood brought to him by Dr John Wilson, a missionary of the Free Church working in India. By determining a dicotyledonous character, he infers that the enclosing sediments must be at least Tertiary in age. Miller ends his lecture by pointing out to the reader that the Earth, no matter how immeasurably old in his time, was not fit for human habitation until the advent of modern (Tertiary) floras: Not until we enter the Tertiary periods do we find floras amid which man might have profitably laboured as a dresser of gardens, a tiller of fields, or a keeper of flocks and herds.

Presumably, this is the evidence needed to explain why human remains are not found throughout the whole of the geological record as would be required were the account of Creation taken literally. Such successive catastrophes and creations eventually fitted the Earth for human life; quite a commonly held view at the time of writing. In later chapters Miller discusses the implication of geological studies and then moves on to talk about the Biblical Flood. He states that it could not be taken literally as a global event and discusses the point that theologians had taken the presence of a universality in the tradition of a Flood story in many cultures as indicating a universality in the distribution of the Flood. He defended a partial flood in the area with which the observers were familiar and indicated that they would have had no way of knowing to what extent the deluge continued in time and space. Miller's other lines of evidence for this localized event rather than a truly global one within the span of human history are gathered from many fields including his observations on sea-level change since the last ice age. The llth and 12th chapters of The Testimony of the Rocks form the portion of the work most relevant to palaeobotany. In these, Miller describes the information he has gathered together over his various travels, geological observations and readings. He points out that Scotland has four fossil floras, those of the Old Red Sandstone (Devonian), Carboniferous, Oolitic (Jurassic) and Tertiary. He describes many of the Old Red Sandstone plants as 'fucoids', where, in fact, they are now known to be truly terrestrial plants. In turning his attention to the distribution of Devonian plants in Scotland Miller comments on the different floras present in the Old Red Sandstone of the Caithness flagstones and those of the Arbroath flagstones in the Midland Valley of Scotland. The floras are quite different, but he did not take this as an indication of differing age, merely of different environments.

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Discussing the Oolitic [Jurassic] floras of Scotland, Miller (p. 397) mentions the similarity in the Scottish flora to that of one collected in Virginia by Prof. W.B. Rogers. He also discusses the similarities and differences between the Scottish and Yorkshire floras of Lindley and Hutton and concludes that the Scottish Jurassic flora most closely resembles that presently seen on New Zealand.

Scientific illustration and the advent of photographic techniques Miller's early works such as the Old Red Sandstone contain a few scattered illustrations in the form of drawings of specimens. However, by the time The Testimony of the Rocks was produced, it was liberally sprinkled with figures of both plants and animals. His involvement in the Free Church of Scotland and his post as editor of The Witness meant that his circle of friends contained many of the leading scientific minds of Edinburgh at the time. Amongst these was one of the pioneers of a photographic technique termed the calotype, Mr David Octavius Hill (Stevenson 20020, b). As well as posing for a number of these calotypes himself (Stevenson 20020, p. 99), Miller (1870, p. 180) wrote enthusiastically in The Witness newspaper about the potential use of the process in book illustration: Could aught seem less able than that the forms of the external world should be made to convert the pencils of light which they emit into real bona fide pencils of light and commence taking their own likenesses? Improbable as the thing may have seemed, however, there were powers in nature of potency enough to effect it, and the newly discovered art of the photographer is simply the art of employing these.

In his Preface to Footprints of the Creator, Miller (1849) mentions that the woodcuts for the book were drawn and cut by a Mr John Adams of Edinburgh. Although Miller was quite capable of producing drawings of his fossils, he left this job to others, probably through pressure of time. Miller would undoubtedly have seen the benefits of using the calotype or a similar photographic representation of fossil materials over conventional drawings to illustrate his books, and also to convey accurately to a place remote from the specimen, the morphological information contained therein. Famously, one calotype of a fossil survives: the Triassic vertebrate Stagonolepis robertsoni (Andrews 1982). The fossil was discovered by a quarryman and handed to Patrick Duff of Elgin, one of Miller's friends. In fact, Hugh and his wife Lydia stayed with Patrick Duff during their honeymoon in 1837. It is, indeed, likely that, as Andrews (1982) suggests, Duff and Miller met again in Edinburgh in

1844 when the former visited Hill to have two calotypes taken, one of the fossil and the other of Duff holding the fossil. One question begs to be asked. With the close association and friendship of the newspaperman and the calotype maker, why were more fossil finds not recorded in this manner? The vast bulk of the calotypes still in existence are posed portraits of people. Landscape and architectural subjects make up the rest. Perhaps the calotype process was relatively expensive in terms of time and materials to be used indiscriminately on fossils unless, of course, they were highly unusual one-offs or had perceived rarity such as Stagonolepis. To Miller, there may have been no reason to capture the image of other, more numerous and commonly occurring fossils when there were still sufficient to collect and exchange with interested parties. Sara Stevenson (pers. comm. 2003) suggests that perhaps Hill and Adamson used this merely as a demonstration of what their technique could do rather than make hundreds of record shots. Alternatively, it may be that the equipment utilized by Hill and his business partner Adamson was unable to resolve a small enough field of view with sufficient illumination to make the calotype process work in the size range typical of fossils. The calotype of Stagonolepis consists of the fossil itself in the centre of the picture sitting on a table. The wide margins all around suggest a relatively wide field of view. Hill and Adamson relied on good natural light to take their calotypes, and often used the southfacing garden of their studio for their work. It may be that there was a restriction in the size of subject that they could successfully image. Stevenson (20020, p. 41) makes reference to a solar microscope being used to magnify and image wood, but, again, this would be at one end of the size scale whilst portraiture would be at the other. Had more interest been taken by the geological community at the time, there might have been some demand to develop suitable technology to address this challenge.

In conclusion Miller's various writings provide excellent travelogues of his Scottish tours and in some places still remains the only geological guide to the area. His descriptions of the landscape, flora and fossils are still relevant, and provide added guidance and enjoyment to visiting the fossil localities today. Although some of the science and language is now rather dated, the observational skills of Miller and his ability to translate these observations into readable text ensure that his works remain a source of extremely useful information. Taylor (2002) identifies Hugh Miller as one of the pantheon of great Victorian popular science writers and deservedly so. Miller's writing

HUGH MILLER AND PALAEOBOTANY

on fossil plants must have brought palaeobotany to a much wider audience than the strictly scientific articles of the day at a time when no-one else was attempting this and as such gives us an interesting insight into the early development of the science. The Hugh Miller collection, held at the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, contains fossil plants from many now classic sites, and a proportion is of type and/or figured status. Much of the rest is representative of Scotland, but the full scientific value of the collection remains to be exploited. Hugh Miller was a great proponent of self-improvement and self-learning, a champion of the supposedly new idea of 'lifelong learning'; in fact, an ancient Scots ideal. As such, he teaches us many valuable lessons regarding the place of the enthusiast in science. In his biographical work, Leask (1896, p. 152) identified Hugh Miller as: 'A man of the people, he was understood by the people; and he wished it to be so'. However, it is only apt that the last word on the subject is Miller's, and his comment on the science of palaeobotany was that: 'We see only detached bits of that green web which has covered our earth since the dry land first appeared ...' (Miller 1857, p. 402). I wish to thank the following particular people for their assistance and useful discussions on Hugh Miller: M.A. Taylor and A. Morrison-Low (National Museums of Scotland), J. Hilton (University of Birmingham), S. Stevenson (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) J. Hudson (University of Leicester) and S. Seright (Groam House Museum, Rosemarkie). G. McKenna (Library Archives, British Geological Survey, Keyworth) is thanked for permission to cite document GSM 1/669 (Proposal to Purchase the Museum of the Late Hugh Miller).

Appendix: Type and Figured fossil plants in the Hugh Miller Collection

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NMS G.I859.33.2103 (Figured) Milleria thomsoni from the Middle Devonian of Cromarty, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as 'vegetable impression' by Miller (1841), plate 7, Fig. 5. Mentioned by Lang (1925), p. 262.

NMS G.1859.33.2104 (Figured) Thursophyton milleri (Salter) from the Middle Devonian of Thurso, Caithness, Scotland. Figured as 'unnamed' by Miller (1857), p. 345, Fig. 120. Described and figured as Lycopodites Milleri by Salter (1858), p. 72, plate 5, Fig. 8a and b.

NMS G.1859.33.2105 (Figured) Thursophyton milleri (Salter) from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian-Givetian boundary) Bay of Skaill, Orkney, Scotland. Figured as 'Fucoid' by Miller (1857), p. 388, Fig. 119 (left-hand figure).

NMS G. 1859.33.2106 (Figured) Thursophyton milleri (Salter) from the Middle Devonian of Thurso, Caithness, Scotland. Figured as Lycopodites sp. by Miller (1857), p. 22, Fig. 12.

NMS G. 1859.33.2107 (Figured) Archaeopteris hibernica (Forbes) from the Upper Devonian of Kiltorcan, County Kilkenny, Ireland. Figured as Cyclopteris hibernica by Miller (1857) p. 8, Fig. 2.

NMS G. 1859.33.2101 (Figured)

NMS G.I859.33.2108 (Figured)

Thursophyton milleri (Salter) from the Middle Devonian of Scotland. (MS Register says Thurso, but may be a specimen of the plant bed from Eathie Haven.) Figured as 'vegetable impression' by Miller (1841), plate 7, Fig. 4. Figured as 'unnamed' by Miller (1857), p. 345.

Prototaxites sp. from the Middle Devonian of Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland. Figured as ^Catamite'by Miller (1857), Fig. 11, p. 22.

NMS G. 1859.33.2102 (Figured) Milleria thornsoni (Dawson) from the Middle Devonian of Cromarty, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as 'vegetable impressions' by Miller (1841), plate 7, Fig. 3. Figured as 'fucoids' by Miller (1857), Fig. 119. Mentioned by Lang (1925), p. 263.

NMS G.I859.33.2109 (Figured) Archaeopteris hibernica (Forbes) from the Upper Devonian of Prestonhaugh, near Duns, Berwickshire, Scotland. Figured as Cyclopterus hibernicus by Miller (1857), p. 363, Fig. 124.

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NMS G.1859.33.2110 (Figured)

NMS G.I 859.3 3.3223 (Figured)

IBarinophyton dawsonii Krausel & Weyland from the Middle Devonian of Bay of Skail, Orkney, Scotland. Figured as 'fern' by Miller (1857), p. 23, Fig. 13. Figured as 'Fern?' by Miller (1849), p. 218, Fig. 63. Figured as 'undetermined' by Lang (1925), p. 272, plate 4, Fig. 66. Associated label reads 'examined by Dr Kidston, 5 Dec 1923: fruitifaction sp. indet'.

Telangium affine from the Lower Carboniferous of Burdiehouse, Midlothian, Scotland. Figured as Telangium affine by Kidston (1924), plate 100, Fig. 2.

NMS G.1859.33.2111 (Figured) 'Dichotomising plant' from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian-Givetian boundary) Bay of Skaill, Orkney, Scotland. Figured as 'Fucoid' by Miller (1857), p. 387, Fig. 118.

NMS G.1859.33.3224 (Figured) Telangium affine (Lindley & Hutton) from the Lower Carboniferous of Burdiehouse, Midlothian. Used by Miller (1857) in the restoration of Sphenopteris in the frontispiece of The Testimony of the Rocks. Mentioned as Sphenopteris elegans by Bunbury (1852), p. 35. Figured as Telangium affine by Kidston (1924), plate 102, Fig. 1.

NMS G.I859.33.3225 (Referred) NMS G.1859.33.2112 (part) & G.1859.33.2113 (Counterpart) (Holotype and Figured) Palaeopitys milleri McNab from the Middle Devonian of Cromarty, Ross and Cromarty. Scotland. Figured as 'Fossil Wood' by Miller (1849), p. 221. Figured as Palaeopitys milleri by McNab (1870), p. 312. Described and figured by Kidston & Lang (1923), pp. 409^17, plate 1, Figs 1-13, plate 2, figs 14-25. Referred to by Lang (1925), pp. 271-272. Referred to by Boureau (1970), pp. 450-451.

Sigillaria tesselata Bronignart from the Lower Carboniferous of Water of Leith, above Colinton, near Edinburgh, Scotland. Referred to as Ulodendron minus by Miller (1857), p. 419.

NMS G.1859.33.3226 (Figured) Stigmaria stellata Gopp from the Carboniferous of Portobello, Midlothian, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), p. 461, Figs 126 and 127.

NMS G.I859.33.3227 (Figured) NMS G.1859.33.2114 (Figured) Milleria thomsoni and Thursophyton milleri from the Middle Devonian of Thurso, Caithness, Scotland. Figured as 'Fucoids' by Miller (1849), p. 187, Fig. 61. Mentioned by Lang (1925), pp. 786 and 789.

Sphenopteridium crassum Lindley & Hutton from the Lower Carboniferous of Burdiehouse, Midlothian, Scotland. Figured as Sphenopteris crassa by Kidston (18830, b\ p. 235, plate 5, Fig. 2. Figured as Sphenopteridium crassum by Kidston (1922), plate 39, Fig. 1.

NMS G 1859.33.3221 (Figured)

NMS G.1859.33.3228 (Figured)

Pecopteris sp. from the Upper Carboniferous of Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Figured as 'fern' by Miller (1857), Fig. 125, p. 417.

Sphenophyllum tenerrimum Stur from the Lower Carboniferous of Burdiehouse, Midlothian, Scotland. Described and figured as Sphenophyllum crassa by Kidston (1883a), p. 235, plate 5, Fig. 2. Figured as Sphenophyllum crassa by Kidston (18836), p. 117, plate 4, Fig. 2. Figured as Sphenophyllum tenerrimum by Crookall (1966), plate 126, Fig. 4.

NMS G.1859.33.3222 (Figured) Sphenopteris bifida (Lindley & Hutton) from the Lower Carboniferous of Burdiehouse, Midlothian. Figured by Miller (1857), p. 423, Fig. 129. Figured as Telangium bifidum by Kidston (1924), plate 103, Figs 1, la, Iband Ic.

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NMS G.191L9.1 (Type and Figured)

NMSG.191L9.7 (Figured)

Pseudoctenis eathiensis (Richards 1884) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian), Eathie, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as Zamia by Miller (1857), Fig. 133. Designated the type of Zanites eathiensis by Richards (1884), p. 117. Figured by Seward (1911), pp. 692-693, photo 45.

Marattiopsis boweri Seward, 1911 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as Zamia by Miller (1857), p. 386, Fig. 140 (right-hand figure). Described as Marattiopsis boweri by Seward (1911), p. 670. Accompanying old museum label identifies specimen as Nilssonia ornentalis, Heer.

NMS G.191L9.2 (Figured) NMS GJ911.9.8 (Figured) Nilssonia orientalis Heer from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as Zamia by Miller (1857), Fig. 134. Described and figured by Seward (1911), p. 696, plate 10, photo 46.

Nilssonia orientalis, Heer from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'Fern leaves Harts-tongue Fern'by Miller (1857), Fig. 141.

NMS G.1911.9.3 (Figured)

NMS G.1911.9.9 (Figured)

Pseudoctenis eathiensis (Richards 1884) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimeridgian), of Eathie, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 135. Described as ICteris falcata by Richards (1884), p. 122. Described as P. eathiensis by Seward (1911), p. 692.

Sagenopteris phillipsi (Brongniart) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'Simple leaved frond' by Miller (1857), Fig. 141.

NMS G.1911.9.10 (Figured) NMS G.191L9.4 (Figured) Zamites buchianus Etheridge from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 136. Described as Podozamites heerianus by Richards (1884), p. 121. Designated and figured as Zamites buchianus by Seward (1911), p. 593, plate 10, photo 47.

NMS G.191L9.5 (Figured) Zamites carruthersi Seward, 1911 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 136. Described as Podozamites heerianus by Richards (1884), p. 120. Designated and figured as Zamites carruthersi by Seward (1911), p. 694, plate 10, photo 43.

Pecopteris obtusifolia Lindley & Hutton from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as Pecopteris obtusifolia by Miller (1857), p. 390, Fig. 143. Identified as Todea sp.?

NMS G.191L9.11 (Figured) Cladophlebis denticulata from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 144.

NMS G.191L9.12 (Figured) Pterophyllum nathorsti Seward, 1911 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as Phlebopteris by Miller (1857), p. 392, Fig. 146. Described and figured as Pterophyllum nathorsti by Seward (1911), p. 694, plate 10, photo 44.

NMS G.191L9.6 (Figured) Decayed coniferous wood from the Upper Jurassic of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as 'cone' by Miller (1857), Fig. 139.

NMSG.1911.9.13 Dichopteris ?pomelii from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'a true fern' by Miller (1857), Fig. 147.

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NMS G.191L9.14 (Figured)

NMSG.1911.9.21 (Figured)

Sphenolepidium cf. kurrianum Dunker, 1846 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'conifer' by Miller (1857), p. 472, Fig. 130A. Described as Sphenolepidium cf. kurrianum by Seward (1911), p. 689.

Hausmania buchii from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'Dicotyledonous leaf by Miller (1857), Fig. 151.

NMS G.1911.9.22 (Figured) NMS G.1911.9.15 (Figured) Elatides curvifolia from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 130 (righthand figure)

Elatides sternbergiana from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'conifer' by Miller (1857), Fig. BOB.

NMS G.1911.9.23 (Figured) NMS G.1911.9.16 (Figured) Dictyophyllum sp. from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridigian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as Dictyophillum by Miller (1857), p. 398, Fig. 152. Referred to by Seward (1911), p. 651.

Elatides curvifolia from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 130c.

NMS G.I859.33.4341 (Holotype and Figured)

Elatides sternbergiana from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as 'conifer'by Miller (1857), Fig. 130E.

Brachyphyllum eathiensie Seward & Bancroft, 1913 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as 'Imbricated stem' by Miller (1857), p. 395, Fig. 149. Figured as Brachyphyllum sp. by Seward (1911), p. 683, plate 9, Fig. 33. Figured as Brachyphyllum eathiense Seward & Bancroft (1913), text-Fig. 5a, plate 1, Figs 2^-4.

NMS G.1911.9.18 (Figured)

NMS G.1859.33.4342 (Holotype and Figured)

Elatides curvifolia from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 130D.

Taxites jeffreyi Seward, 1911 from the Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) of Brora, Sutherland, Scotland. Figrured as 'Conifer twigs' by Miller (1857), p. 379, Fig. 131 A. Figured as Taxites jeffreyi by Seward (1911), p. 688, plate 5, Fig. 73. Figured as Taxites jeffreyi by Seward & Bancroft (1913), plate 1, Fig. 5.

NMS G.1911.9.17 (Figured)

NMS G. 1911.9.19 (Figured) Williamsonia pecten (Phillips) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured as Zamia by Miller (1857), p. 386, Fig. 140 (left-hand figure). Figured as Williamsonia pecten (Phillips) by Seward (1911), plate 7, photos 19 and 20, plate 7, Fig. 26. Referred to by Seward (1912), p. 101.

NMS G.1911.9.20 (Figured) Indeterminable plant from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 147 (lefthand figure)

NMS G.I859.33.4343 (Holotype and Figured) Masculostrobus woodwardi Seward & Bancroft, 1912 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as 'unnamed' by Miller (1857), p. 475, Fig. 132. Figured as Masculostrobus sp. by Seward (1911), p. 650. Described and figured as Masculostobus woodwardi Seward & Bancroft (1913), plate 1, Figs 6-8.

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NMS G.1859.33.4344 (Holotype and Figured)

NMS G.1859.33.4352 (Figured)

Conitesjuddi Seward and Bancroft, 1913 (forma a) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as Conites juddi by Seward & Bancroft (1913), p. 874, text-fig. 2B;p. 875, text-fig. 3.

Indeterminable plant from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 141A. Quoted by Seward (1911), p. 650.

References NMS G.I859.33.4345 (Holotype and Figured) Conites juddi Seward & Bancroft, 1913 (forma (3) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as Conitesjuddi by Seward & Bancroft (1913), p. 875, text-Fig. 2C.

NMS G.I859.33.4346 (Holotype and Figured) Conites juddi Seward & Bancroft, 1913 (forma x) from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured as Conites juddi Seward & Bancroft (1913), p. 876, text-Fig. 2a; p. 877, text-figs. 4a and b, plate 1, Figs 10-12; plate 2, figs 14-16.

NMS G.I859.33.4348 (Holotype and Figured) Strobilites miller Seward & Bancroft, 1913 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), p. 448, Fig. 150. Described and figured by Seward & Bancroft (1913), p. 882, plate 1, Fig. 13.

NMS G.I859.33.4350 (Holotype & Figured) Williamsonia scotica Seward, 1913 from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Eathie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Figured by Miller (1857), Fig. 138. Figured by Seward (1912), p. 101, plate 12. Referred to by Seward & Bancroft (1913), p. 887.

NMS G.I859.33.4351 (Syntype and Figured) Bucklandia milleriana Carruthers, 1870 from the Jurassic (Corallian) of Brora, Sutherland, Scotland. Described and figured as Bucklandia milleriana by Carruthers (1870), p. 687, plate 55, Fig. 1. Referred to by Seward & Bancroft (1913), p. 698.

AGASSIZ, J.L.R. 1844. Monographic des poissons fossiles des Vieux Gres Rouge ou Systeme Devonien (Old Red Sandstone) des lies Bretanniques et de Russie, Jent and Gassmann, Neuchatel. ALSTON, D. 1996. The fallen meteor: Hugh Miller and local tradition. In: SHORTLAND, M. (ed.) Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 206-229. ANDREWS, S.M. 1982. The Discovery of Fossil Fishes in Scotland up to 1845 with Checklists of Agassiz's Figured Specimens. Royal Scottish Museum Studies, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. BAILEY, E.B. & WEIR, J. 1932. Submarine faulting in Kimmeridgian times: East Sutherland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 57,429^67. B AYNE, P. 1871. Life and Letters of Hugh Miller, Volumes I & II. Strathan & Co., London. BOUREAU, E. 1970. Bryophyta, Psilophyta and Lycophyta. In: BOUREAU, E. (ed.) Traite de paleobotanique, Volume 4, Part 1. Masson, Paris. BUNBURY, C.J.F. 1852. Description of a peculiar fossil fern from the Sydney coal field, Cape Breton. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 8, 31—35. CARRUTHERS, W. 1870. On fossil Cycladean stems from the Secondary rocks of Britain. Transactions of the Linnean Society, 26,675-708. CHAMBERS, R. 1844. [1994]. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Writings [with introductions by J.A. SECORD]. Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL. CLEAL, C.J. & THOMAS, B.A. 1995. Palaeozoic Palaeobotany of Great Britain. Geological Conservation Review Series. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. CROOKALL, R. 1966. Fossil Plants of the Carboniferous Rocks of Great Britain. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain: Palaeontology, 4, Part 4. DONOVAN, R.N. 1980. Lacustrine cycles, fish ecology and stratigraphic zonation in the Middle Devonian of Caithness. Scottish Journal of Geology, 16, 35-50. HUDSON, J.D. 2002. The Geology of Eigg. Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust. HUDSON, J.D. 2003. Hugh Miller's Geological Discoveries and Observations on the Isle of Eigg, as Recorded in The Cruise of the Betsey and in the Light of Modern Knowledge. In: BORLEY, L. (ed.) Celebrating the life and times of Hugh Miller. Scotland in the early 19th century, ethnography and folk lore, geology and natural history, church and society. Cromarty Arts Trust, Cromarty Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, 197-213. KIDSTON, R. 1883a. On Sphenopteris crassa. Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, 7, 120-125.

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KIDSTON, R. 18836. On Sphenopteris crassa (Lindley and Hutton). Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 11, 297-314. KIDSTON, R. 1924. Fossil plants of the Carboniferous rocks of Great Britain. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, 2, Part 5. KIDSTON, R. & LANG, W.H. 1923. On Palaeopitys Milleri, McNab. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 53,409-419. KNELL, SJ. & TAYLOR, M.A. 2003. Hugh Miller, the Fossil Discoverer and Collector. In: BORLEY, L. (ed.) Celebrating the life and times of Hugh Miller. Scotland in the early 19th century, ethnography and folk lore, geology and natural history, church and society. Cromarty Arts Trust, Cromarty Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, 156-167. LANG, W.H. 1925. Contributions to the study of the Old Red Sandstone Flora of Scotland. I. On plant-remains from the fish beds of Cromarty. II. On a sporangiumbearing branch-system from the Stromness Beds. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 54, 253-279. LEASK, W.K. 1896. Hugh Miller. Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, Edinburgh. LYON, G. 1866. Memoir of the Society. Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, 1, 2-3. McNAB, J. 1870. [Title unknown.] Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 10,312. MILLER, H. 1841. The Old Red Sandstone: Or, New Walks in an Old Field. J. Johnstone, Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1847. First Impressions of England and Its People. Nimmo & Co., Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1849. Footprints of the Creator or The Asterolepis of Stromness. Nimmo & Co., Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1854. My Schools and Schoolmasters. [1993 reprint with Introduction and notes by J. Robertson.]. B&W Publishing, Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1857. The Testimony of the Rocks, Or, Geology in its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. [2001 edition.] St Matthew Publishing, Cambridge. MILLER, H. 1858. The Cruise of the Betsey Or A Summer Holiday in the Hebrides with Rambles of a Geologist Or Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland. Nimmo & Co., Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1859. Sketchbook of Popular Geology. Nimmo & Co., Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1863. Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood, Geological and Historical with the Geology of the Bass Rock. Nimmo & Co., Edinburgh. MILLER, H. 1870. Leading Articles on Various Subjects. Nimmo & Co., Edinburgh. MORRISON-LOW, A.D. 1992. William Nicol, FRSE c. 1771-1851: Lecturer, scientist and collector. Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, New Series, 2,123-131. MORRISON-LOW, A.D. & NUTTALL, R.H. 2003. Hugh Miller in an Age of Microscopy. In: BORLEY, L. (ed.) Celebrating the life and times of Hugh Miller. Scotland in the early 19th century, ethnography and folk lore, geology and natural history, church and

society. Cromarty Arts Trust, Cromarty Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, 214-226. OLDROYD, D.R. 1996. The geologist from Cromarty. In: SHORTLAND, M. (ed.) Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 76-121. RICHARDS, J.T. 1884. On Scottish fossil cycadaceous leaves contained in the Hugh Miller collection. Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, 4,117. S ALTER, J.W. 1858. On some remains of terrestrial plants in the Old Red Sandstone of Caithness. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 14,72-76. SEWARD, A.C. 1911. The Jurassic flora of Sutherland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 47, Part 4,643-709. SEWARD, A.C. 1912. A petrified Williamsonia from Scotland. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London (Section B), 203,101-126. SEWARD, A.C. & BANCROFT, T.N. 1913. Jurassic plants from Cromarty and Sutherland, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 48, 867-888. SMILES, S. 1878. Robert Dick: Baker of Thurso, Geologist and Botanist. John Murray, London. SMITH, J.A. 1862. Hugh Miller's Museum. Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, 2,151. STEVENSON, S. 20020. The Personal Art of David Octavius Hill. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. STEVENSON, S. 2002&. Facing the Light: The Photography of Hill andAdamson. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. SUTHERLAND, E. 2002. Lydia: Wife of Hugh Miller of Cromarty. Tuckwell Press Ltd, East Lothian. TAYLOR, M.A. 2002. Hugh Miller and his fossils: a bicentenary appreciation. Edinburgh Geologist, 38,10-19. TAYLOR, M.A. & GOSTWICK, M. 2003. Hugh Miller's Collection - a memorial to a great geological Scot. Edinburgh Geologist, 40, 24-29. TORRENS, H. 2003. William Smith (1769-1839) and the Search for English Raw Materials: Some Parallels with Hugh Miller and Scotland. In: BORLEY, L. (ed.) Celebrating the life and times of Hugh Miller. Scotland in the early 19th century, ethnography and folk lore, geology and natural history, church and society. Cromarty Arts Trust, Cromarty Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, 137-155. TREWIN, N.H. & HURST, A. 1993. Excursion Guide to the Geology of East Sutherland and Caithness. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh. VAN DER BURGH, J. & VAN KONIJNENBURG-VAN CITTERT, J.H.A. 1984. A drifted flora from the Kimmeridgian (Upper Jurassic) of Lothbeg point, Sutherland, Scotland. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 43,359-396. WATERSTON, C.D. 1951. The stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Jurassic rocks of Eathie (Cromarty). Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 62, 33-51.

Baron Achille de Zigno: an Italian palaeobotanist of the 19th century HUGH LANCE PEARSON Clay don High School Church Lane, Claydon, Ipswich, Suffolk IP6 OEG, UK Abstract: Baron Achille de Zigno (1813-1892) of Padua published dozens of articles on the early Mesozoic floras from the Venetia region of Italy. His magna opera, however, were the two volumes of the Flora fossilis formations oolithicae (Volume 1 (1856-1867) and Volume 2 (1873-1885), Padua University Press, Padua). In these he aimed to put the Venetian Jurassic plants in context with what were then considered oolitic floras from around the world. Like many of his contemporaries, his research has been revised both taxonomically and stratigraphically, so that the fossil plants he described from the calcari grigi are now regarded as older than Middle Jurassic. His collection of over 3000 specimens of Italian fossil plants, now kept in the University of Padua, continued to attract researchers during the 20th century from across Europe who used light microscopy to investigate them. Today electron microscopy is being applied to Baron Zigno's specimens that are of importance not only as representatives of a rare Middle Liassic flora but also of value in the palaeobiogeography of the Tethys area in Lower Jurassic times.

The discovery, investigation and description of fossil plants from the Italian peninsular during the last three millennia have been discussed by several authors (e.g Stopes 1914; Edwards 1931, 1976; Gordon 1935; Andrews 1947, 1980; Chesters 1963; Scott 2001). Moreover, the excavation of an Etruscan necropolis at Marzabotto, about 60 km west of Bologna, has revealed one of the earliest instances of human encounters with Mesozoic plants. Burial chambers discovered at that site in 1867 had been ornamented in about 500 BC with silicified stems of the Cretaceous bennettite Cycadeoidea etrusca (Capellini & Solms-Laubach 1892). Most anglophone commentators have focused their attention on Roman and Renaissance times in their histories of Italian palaeobotany, with little mention of the researchers who investigated fossil plants there after the 17th century (Seward 1898; Gothan & Weyland 1954; Wesley 1956). Amongst the score of Italian palaeobotanists who described new genera during the 19th century (Andrews 1955), Baron Achille de Zigno is one whose collection and published accounts of Italian fossil plants deserve to be more widely consulted. A number of biographies were published in Italian shortly after Zigno's death (e.g. Omboni 1892), but only a brief obituary appeared in English (Anon. 1892). Wesley revised and extended Zigno's account of the Jurassic flora of the Venetia region of NE Italy (Pearson 2002). In this account of Zigno as a palaeobotanist, much information has been drawn from Wesley (1956). Therefore, I take this opportunity to dedicate this biographaphical sketch of Zigno to my former mentor at the University of Leeds, the late Alan Wesley.

Life history Achille de Zigno (Fig. 1) was born at Padua, then part of the Bonapartist Kingdom of Italy, on 14 January 1813. His father, Baron Marco de Zigno, was a descendant of the 17th century Count Alberto de Zignis of Padua. His Irish mother, who had both French and English ancestry, assisted in his primary education at home, encouraging him to make his own herbarium of named plant specimens. Omboni (1892) described how the young Signor de Zigno (he became Count de Zigno in 1838 and was made an hereditary Baron of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1857) had his interest in mineralogy fostered by Lord Paroloni of Bassano, whose collection of metals and crystals he tried to recreate on his return to Padua. A diary he kept from when he was 6 years old reflects his love of natural beauty and a delight in poetry. Following travels to Switzerland and around the then Austrian provinces of northern Italy, Zigno settled to study Italian, French and English at the famous University of Padua, founded in 1222. Aged 13, he began work on his studies in natural sciences, going on to study Spanish and some aspects of agricultural industry. The teenage Achille often visited the famous Orto Botanico di Padova, a botanical garden dating from 1545 and second in age only to that at Pisa (Morton 1981). There he came into contact with Professor Catullo, who encouraged him to study the cryptogamic elements of the flora in and around Padua, including the microscopic scrutiny of algae. Moreover, at the Orto Botanico, young Achille also met Count Nicolo Da Rio, a geologist who introduced him to fieldwork in the Euganean Hills to the south of Padua. These extinct volcanoes bear an endemic flora and Zigno composed a catalogue of the cryptogams found there to enable him to graduate as an alumnus of the University of Padua in

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241, 85-94.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Fig. 1. Baron Achille de Zigno. Photographed in later life by Fiorentini. Original print kept at the Palazzo Catullo, University of Padua.

1834. In 1835, he continued his geological studies whilst assisting Prof. Catullo at the Orto Botanico.

The palaeobotanical research and publications of Zigno Following his detailed life history of the baron, Omboni (1892) offered a full and annotated bibliography of all of Zigno's published works. Here, this chapter attempts to remark upon Zigno's research on fossil plants and the reader is directed to Omboni (1892) for his works on stratigraphy, palaeozoology,

neobotany, mycology, history and biography. Cleevely (1983) lists other published biographies, but these have a less palaeobotanical focus or are less complete than the work by Omboni. Although Omboni's biography of Zigno is very informative, it offers few details of the personal life of his friend the Baron. Omboni was Professor of Geology in the University of Padua between 1869 and 1906, so, one imagines, Zigno had ready access to the relevant scientific literature obtained by the libraries of that university. Zigno evidently continued to travel widely within Italy to attend, and sometimes to preside over, national scientific conferences

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(see: www.quipo.it/sips/riu-19.htm for details). Wesley (1956) quoted from a letter sent to Zigno from Adolphe Brongniart in 1855 in which the latter compared certain conifer species found in the Lias of Italy, France and England. However, one is left only to speculate as to how the Baron earned his living, how his publications were paid for and whether he continued to travel outside Italy as much in later life as in his youth. In total Zigno published exactly 100 papers (opuscoli) and four books (opere), an output bearing comparison with that of his close contemporary in England, W.C. Williamson. Contrary to one English obituary notice (Anon. 1892), Zigno's first published work was a paper in 1833 that dealt with the Recent cryptogamic flora of Padua and its province. This was his only paper in Latin (Zigno 1833), but he used that language for diagnoses of new taxa in subsequent studies. Of his 104 works, two books (i.e. both volumes of his Flora fossilis formationes oolithicae, 1856-1867, 1873-1885) and 22 papers (Zigno 1852, 18530-d, 1854, 1856, 1859a, 6, 1860, 1861,1862,1863,1864,1865,1868,18690,fc,1871, 1872, 1875, 1878) dealt with fossil plants, being about one third of his published output in the last 40 years of his life (although Wesley 1956 claimed more). Most of these were in Italian, but Zigno reflected his mixed parentage, experience as a cosmopolitan traveller and as a polyglot worker by writing five papers in German, three in French and two in English. He was the sole author in all of his publications. Although he devoted one paper to Eocene plants (Zigno 18530) and another to Triassic plants that had been collected in Italy by his contemporary Professor Abramo Massalongo (Zigno 1862), the majority of Zigno's palaeobotanical publications dealt with Jurassic plants from the Noriglio Grey Limestone Formation of the Venetian or Vicentinian Alps in what is now NE Italy.

Research by Zigno on the Grey Limestones of the Venetian Alps If one were to look for a time when Zigno first encountered fossil plants then, arguably, his initial visit to the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni (Sieben Burgen of germanophone authors) in the summer of 1836 might fit. In this part of the Province of Vicenza, between Trento and Asiago some 80 km NW of Padua (see maps of fossil plant localities in Van Erve 1977), Zigno met Lodovico Pasini. Pasini drew his attention to the Jurassic flora (Phytolites of Zigno 1850) that had been described first by Abbot Agostino del Pozzo in 1764 from a quarry on Mount Spitz, about 1 km from the village of Rotzo (Zigno 1856; Wesley 1956, 1965). Zigno's interest in these

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plants, however, seems to have remained dormant for almost 15 years. During the 1840s he devoted most of his attention to other aspects of the geology of Venetia, plus writing his textbook Introduzione allo Studio della Geologia that was published in 1843. Then, in the first of his papers in English, Zigno (1850) drew attention to the earlier works of Pagani, Arduino, Brocchi, Da Rio, Alexandre Brongniart and Catullo in describing the stratigraphy of the Venetian Alps. He was, therefore, aware of the observations made by those authors, going back into the late 18th century, concerning the taxonomic comparisons of the Sette Comuni fossil flora and extant plants, including the remarks by them on climatic changes since Jurassic times. Nevertheless, he stated (Zigno 1850, p. 426): Above these are found grey shelly beds, together with one containing the well known Phytolites of Rotzo in the Setti Comuni, No one, as far as I am aware, has studied these vegetable impressions (author's italics), which I propose to describe and figure in my work on the Alps: in the meantime I may state my opinion that this bed also is lower oolite [i.e. Middle Jurassic]

Zigno maintained this stratigraphic view of the Sette Comuni flora for the rest of his life and that is, of course, evident in the title of his two major volumes, the Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae (Zigno 1856-1867,1873-1885). As Wesley (1956, pp. 7-9) remarked, Zigno had misidentified some fossil shells in the Rotzo floral horizon with what had originally been considered Oolitic species of the brachiopod Terebratula. Moreover, subsequent discoveries of certain ammonites and palynomorphs in association with these plant beds have shown them to belong high in the Middle Lias (viz- the late Pliensbachian stage of the Lower Jurassic, c. 190 Ma,Van Erve 1977). As a result of this stratigraphic error, Zigno (1850) was inclined to favour taxonomic identity between this Venetian flora and younger, Middle Jurassic plants described during the first half of the 19th century from Yorkshire, the Sarthe in France and the Rajmahal Hills of India. Simultaneously, Zigno tended to disregard comparisons with the older, Rhaeto-Liassic floras then known from Normandy, Franconia, Scania in Sweden, Danish Bornholm and Virginia, USA (Zigno 1859^,6,1862). At this point, Zigno is to be praised for the great amount of fieldwork and collecting of fossil plant specimens he carried out in order to further his research. Thereby, he managed to amass some 3053 specimens that went on to become part of the geological collection at the University of Padua (Cleevely 1983). He extended the number of Liassic plant localities in Vicenza province from one to five, collected at eight localities in Verona province and from one locality on the border

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between the provinces of Venezia Tridentina and Veneto (see Wesley 1956; Van Erve 1977 for locality details). As with most of his contemporary palaeobotanists, Zigno described and compared fossil plants more megascopically rather than microscopically. I know of only one illustration and written account in his published works that helps to define his species using cuticular preparations (Fig. 2). One reads in Zigno (1859, p. 114) an account of Venetian fossil plants: . . . The preservation of the specimens is surprising, and some of them show fructification in the most evident manner. Simple immersion in water saturated with nitric acid is sometimes sufficient to separate the epidermis (sic) of the two surfaces of the pinnules, and thus to observe the tissue easily through a microscope.... This evidently shows that Zigno was using the oxidative maceration technique described in Lindley &Hutton(1834).

The Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae (1856-1885) Although Baron de Zigno described certain new genera and species in separate shorter papers (Zigno 1852, \853a-d, 1861, 1865), the bulk of his taxonomic descriptions and revisions were published by the University of Padua Press in the two volumes of his Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae: Volume 1 (1856-1868) (Fig. 2) and Volume 2 (1873-1885). Andrews (1955) listed seven new generic names erected by Zigno, viz.: Cycadopteris 1853 non Schimper 1869, Encoelocladium 1856, Pholidophorus 1856, Trevisania 1856, Dichopteris 1865, Marzaria 1865 and Blastolepis 1885. In addition, Zigno (1856) validated the manuscript name Mastocarpites Trevisano MS 1849 and in 1873 he formally established Pandanocarpum Brongniart 1828 that had been a nomen nudum. As Wesley (1956) enumerated, Volume 1 described and illustrated 32 fossil plant species from the Venetian Alps, whilst Volume 2 added a further 36. If one adds on the eight species names published elsewhere (Zigno 1868), the grand total of new Venetian fossil plant taxa comes to 76 species. Moreover, in those two volumes, Zigno attempted a cosmopolitan revision of all fossil plant species that he considered to be oolitic in age. Although his illustrations are only of Venetian specimens, Zigno listed and remarked upon a total of 74 genera discovered not only in Europe but also from India, Australia, Spitzbergen and Siberia. His taxonomic revisions included some 28 species in new combinations plus several amended diagnoses for certain genera and species. The 42 plates that accompany both volumes were

drawn by G. Prosdocimi and F. Kirchmayr with lithography by Kirchmayr and Scozzi (Fig. 3). The plates are mostly quarto, with a few folding out for larger material, showing the fossils at approximately life size. Yellow or green tinting has been used on all plates, but the rock matrix, as its name calcaro grigio suggests, is an achromatic dark grey marl with the plant specimens in either typically black coaly matter or as grey impressions.

Taxonomic and palaeobiogeographical consequences of the research by Zigno on fossil plants As mentioned above, Zigno's taxonomic decisions regarding the identities of the species discovered in the fossil flora of the Venetian Alps were influenced significantly by his belief that they are from the Oolite, i.e. Middle Jurassic. Wesley (1956) noted that although certain contemporaries of Zigno (e.g. Bunbury 1859; Schenk- see Zigno 1869&) criticized and revised a few of his circumscriptions of taxa, most 19th century commentators on his publications (including, notably, Schimper 1870) found his determinations acceptable. Likewise, in Volume 2 of his Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae, Zigno (1873-1885) accepted Schimper's revisions and readily followed the taxonomic assignments proposed by Zeiller (1882) and Saporta (1891) for the few elements of the Sette Comuni flora they had investigated. Even after the death of Zigno in 1892, Seward (1898, 1900) chose to agree with him in identifying most of these Italian fossils with species described by Lindley & Mutton (1831-1837) and others from the Yorkshire Jurassic. The advent of the 20th century, however, brought more criticism of the taxonomic opinions of Zigno. Seward (1904, 1910, 1917, 1919) remarked upon specific differences between the plants from Italy and England, although he continued to accept their close synchrony. At Padua itself, however, Grandori (1913&) published part of her doctoral thesis on the gymnosperms of the Sette Comuni flora, having had access to the unpublished manuscript for a proposed Volume 3 of Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae that Zigno had worked on to within 6 months of his death (Wesley 1956). Her comments on the conifers in particular led Grandori to compare them more with the described Rhaeto-Liassic taxa rather than with the younger oolitic species. Wesley (1956) agreed with Grandori's remarks and he gave detailed palaeontological reasons why the Sette Comuni flora came to be regarded as late Middle Liassic in age (Wesley 1965). Harris (1961,1964,1969) continued the trend in separating the English Middle Jurassic plants from the Italian Lias taxa. He followed Wesley's advice in discussing certain species of the

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Fig. 2. Plate 16 from the fourth part of Volume 1 of Flora fossilisformationis oolithicae (Zigno 1867) This illustrates specimens of the pinnate frond Cycadopteris brauniana Zigno, including, as 4, microscopic details of unspecified magnification drawn from a cuticular preparation.

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Fig. 3. Plate 42 from Part 5 of Volume 2 of Flora fossilts formationis oolithicae (Zigno 1885, Volume 2, Parts 4 and 5). In addition to the cone, megasporophylls and seeds of cycads, (1-8), three bennettite 'cones' are illustrated, (9-11). Note in 9 the rare organic connection between the reproductive organ and the leaf fragments in Williamsonia otozamitis (Zigno) Seward.

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bennettite morphogenus Otozamites, Harris (1969, pp. 52-53) remarking:

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below for more detailed accounts of these amendments.) However, two aspects of Zigno's work go beyond the fundamental descriptive and systematic O. tenuatus was identified with O. bunburyanus Zigno first level and are significant in our understanding certain by Zigno (1868, p. 9) and later by Seward (1900), and I aspects of Jurassic biogeography and the reconstrucagree (Harris 1946) since the figures look just alike. O tention of whole Mesozoic plants. uatus is now separated on information given me by Dr A As mentioned above, Zigno sought to compare Wesley. . . . This removes one of the very few remaining the Sette Comuni flora from the Venetian Alps with species of the Italian Upper (sic) Lias which seemed identiall the other fossil plant taxa known to him from all cal with one from the Yorkshire Lower Oolite. around the world and that he regarded as oolitic in The overall taxonomic framework that Zigno age. The majority of the genera that he chose for employed is presented in the two 'Indice' sections these Italian plants are widely distributed amongst that follow the plate captions and precede the plates the Jurassic northern hemisphere (Laurasian) floras in each volume of his Flora fossilis formationis and, therefore, present no surprises from the peroolithicae. In brief, Volume 1 spans what he termed spective of prehistoric plant geography (Wesley five 'classes' of 'Acotyledones' - viz. 'Fungi, Algae, 1965, 1973). However he erected two species of Calamariae, Filices, Lycopodiaceae' - correspon- Phyllotheca Brongniart from Italy (namely P. ding approximately to what might be called cryp- brongniartiana and P. equiestiformis) following his togams of more modern usage. Both lower 'classes' account of three other species of Phyllotheca then were then split further into the lower ranks of 'Ordo, known only from the Jurassic of Australia, includGenus, Species', there being no formal considera- ing the type species P. australis Brongniart. tion of the familial level. Therefore, Zigno identified what was essentially a One should recall here that at the time of the publi- Gondwanan morphogenus as being present in the cation of Volume 1 (1856-1868), the distinct status of Jurassic flora of Italy. Moreover, Zigno (1867, what are now called pteridosperms (seed ferns or Volume 2, Books 3-5) named a morphospecies of Cycadofilices auctorum) had yet to be recognized or Jurassic fern frond from the Venetian Alps, described by Oliver, Scott and others (Andrews Hymenophyllites leckenbyi. Halle (1916) revised 1980). Thus, what are now treated as a group of gym- this taxon in relation to his work on Mesozoic plants nospermous plants (e.g. Pachypteris, Dichopteris, from Antarctica, recombining it as Sphenopteris Sagenopteris) were included by Zigno amongst his leckenbyi (Zigno) Halle. As Wesley (1965, 1973) 'Filices', loosely meaning ferns. Likewise, in Volume remarked, there exist certain elements of the Sette 2, Zigno covered what were essentially spermato- Comuni flora, that Zigno first brought to scientific phytes under the headings of 'Monotyledones' and attention, that might indicate a palaeogeographic 'Dicotyledones\ but without implying any close location for the Venetian Alps flora on the southern affinity with flowering plants (angiosperms) as does or Gondwanan shore of the Tethys Sea in Jurassic present-day usage. Amongst the former, he included times. This suggestion is further supported by the two classes - viz. Spadiciflorae and Liroideae - to discovery of the miospores Cadargasporites and incorporate undivided leaves (or leaflets) showing Fimbriaesporites in the Lias of the Venetian Alps, parallel venation. Given their general lack of cuticular both palynomorphs originally described from detail and/or connection with reproductive organs, Gondwanan localities (Van Erve 1977). A second important palaeobotanical observation these two 'classes' of Zigno's might more appropriatley have been left as incertae sedis, a designation he arising from Volume 2 of the Flora fossilis formatioelected not to employ. The greater part of Volume 2 nis oolithicae is his description and illustration (Fig. dealt with the most abundant and diverse elements of 3) of a bennettite reproductive organ bearing parts of the Venetian Alps flora, i.e. the cycadophytes, all of three vegetative fronds in organic connexion (Zigno which he put into one class, his Cycadaceae, within 1885, Volume 2, Books 4 and 5, pp. 174-175; plate his 'Dicotyledones'. Much as with Volume 1, Zigno's XLII, Fig. 9). Not only are these so-called 'flowers' account in Volume 2 preceeded the work of Engler, of Bennettitales infrequent discoveries (Seward Thomas, Bancroft and others who named and diag- 1917; Harris 1969), but also their irrefutable connecnosed the Bennettitales (Cycadeoideales auctorum) tion with a recognizable leaf morphogenus provides as an order of Mesozoic gymnosperms distinct from a rare and important example for use in the partial reconstruction and subsequent naming of a more the superficially similar cycads. Of course, much of the systematic scheme that complete bennettite plant body. Zigno named this Zigno proposed for the liassic Venetian Alps flora in fascinating specimen Blastolepis otozamitis, placing his Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae and else- the following morphological interpretation on it: where has been revised at the specific, generic and higher taxonomic ranks. (The reader should refer to Questo interessante esemplare, da cui sorge la foglia prithe works of Seward, Grandori and Wesley cited mordiale di un'Otozamite, ci svela il modo di germinazone

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di queste Zamiee, ed esclude il dubbio, posto innanzi da qualche autore, che possano spettare alia Classe delle Felci. (See the Appendix for a translation.)

Seward (1917) re-examined Zigno's holotype of B. otozamitis at Padua and agreed with him that this specimen showed an ovulate 'strobilus' in organic connection with an Otozamites frond, renaming it Williamsonia otozamitis (Zigno) Seward on grounds of nomenclatural priority. The morphological view of Zigno that this represents a germinating vegatative propagule was not queried, however, until Harris (1969) compared it to a 'female flower' rather than a bud. Wesley (1974) re-examined the holotype of B. otozamitis, when he confirmed the organic connection between the ovulate organ and the three fronds, identifying the latter with O. molinianus Zigno and remarking on closely associated fragments of possible involucral scales. Therefore, Zigno had drawn to our attention a very rare instance of a partially reconstructed, large Mesozoic plant that links together two previously isolated morphogenera. Chaloner (1986) discussed the nomenclatural consequences of such examples of organic connection, but palaeobotanical literature generally refers to such fortuitous finds more from the Palaeozoic or Cainozoic eras, rather than from the Mesozoic sediments.

Concluding remarks Shortly after the publication of Volume 2 of his Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae Zigno was elected Foreign Correspondent of the Geological Society of London in 1886. An unpublished manuscript now kept at the University of Padua shows that he continued to work on a third volume of the Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae to within 6 months of his death. Having spent most of his life as a Habsburg subject, Zigno died at his home in via Sette Martiri, Padua in the newly independent Kingdom of Italy on 15 January 1892 when he was 79 years old. Following his paper of 1878 that served as a preamble to that volume, Zigno began to describe the conifers unearthed in the Venetian Alps, along with all other coniferous species that he regarded as oolitic in age. In addition, a supplement was to have been appended to this proposed third volume in order to describe certain Jurassic ferns and cycadophytes discovered after 1885 (Wesley 1956). During his lifetime Zigno was commemorated by at least two eponymous taxa. Saporta (1884) named one of the Italian Lias conifers Pachyphyllum zignoi. Wesley (1956) synonymized this morphospecies of leafy shoots with Pagiophyllum rotzoanum (Massalongo) Seward. Nathorst (1886) named a winged seed from the Rhaetic of Sweden Samaropsis

zignoana. Posthumously, Zigno had two additional morphospecies of Italian Lias conifer, Elatocladus zignoi Wesley (1956) and Brachyphyllum zignoi Grandori (1913&), named in his honour. The large collection of Liassic plants made by Zigno and kept at Padua attracted direct re-examination within a decade of his death (Seward 1898). What had originally been the Baron's private collection of fossils (including both vertebrates and plants) was sold by his surviving family to the University of Padua Institute of Geology. The specimens were first housed in the famous Palazzo del Bo before removal to their present location in the Renaissance Palazzo Cavalli in Via Giotto (Fornasiero 1998). Whilst these specimens attracted scrutiny by Seward (1898,1910, 1917, 1919) and Wesley (1956, 1958), the principal Italian palaeobotanist to examine them was Luigia Grandori (1913a, b, 1915). Research on these specimens continues today at Lyons, France, where Prof. F. Thevenard and colleagues of the Universite Claude-Bernard, Villeurbanne are using transmission electron microscopy to investigate the ultrastructure of certain plant cuticles from the Liassic floras of the Venetian Alps (pers. comm.). The author is also engaged in a re-examination of some of the bennettite and conifer specimens in the Zigno collection at Padua. Given the large size of Zigno's collection of Lower Jurassic plants, its inclusion of a rare example of connection between different organs, the supposed presence of Gondwanan elements and its almost unique stratigraphic position within the European Lias, it is perhaps most fitting to leave the final remarks on the work of Baron Achille de Zigno to Wesley (1956): L'interesse principale della flora fossile dei calcari grigi risiede nelle sua sta geologica, . . . Per questa ragione, dunque, uno studio della flora e tanto importante poiche il complesso di specie ci da notizia, forse la sola, di una fase della storia della flora mondiale. (See the Appendix for a translation.) Much of this research has been made possible by the kind help given by Dr M. Fornasiero of the Dipartimento di Geologia, Paleontologia e Geofisica, Universita di Padova. Signer S. Castelli, of the same department, supplied the photograph of Zigno from an original in Padua. Mr R. Pinkney assisted with the additional photography and typescript, as well as with helpful remarks on the manuscript. Prof. W.G. Chaloner kindly read an early draft of this paper and his detailed criticisms are gratefully acknowledged.

Appendix I take the liberty of offering the following translations from the Italian from pp. 87 and 88 of this paper:

BARON ACHILLE DE ZIGNO: PALAEOBOTANIST

(a) Zigno (1885, pp. 174-175): This interesting specimen, in which the first leaf of an Otozamites emerges, shows us the mode of germination in this cycad, and removes any ambiguity, proposed by certain authors previously, that it might belong to the class of ferns.

(b) Wesley (1956, p. 62): The most interesting aspect of the fossil flora of the Grey Limestones of the Veneto lies in their geological age. . . . For this reason, therefore, a study of this flora is very important, since this combination of species gives information, perhaps uniquely so, about one phase in the history of the world's flora.

References ANDREWS, H.N. 1947. Ancient Plants and the World They Lived In. John Wiley, New York. ANDREWS, H.N. 1955. Index of Generic Names of Fossil Plants, 1820-1950. US Geological Survey Bulletin, 1013. ANDREWS, H.N. 1980. The Fossil Hunters in Search of Ancient Plants. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. ANON. 1892. Baron Achille de Zigno. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 48, 60. BRONGNIART, A. 1828. Histoire des vegetaux fossiles, Volume 1: Parts 1 and 2 (1828). G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. BUNBURY, C.J.F. 1859. Note. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 16,115. CAPELLINI, G. & SOLMS-LAUBACH, H. 1892. I tronchi di Bennettitee dei Musei Italiani. Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, ser. 5a, 2,161-215. CHALONER, W.G. 1986. Chapter 5. Reassembling the Whole Fossil Plant, and Naming it. In: SPICER, R.A. & THOMAS, B.A. (eds) Systematic and Taxonomic Approaches in Palaeobotany. Systematics Association Special Publications, 31, 67-78. CHESTERS, K.I.M. 1963. Fossil plant taxonomy. In: TURRILL, W.B. (ed.) Recent Researches in Plant Taxonomy. Vistas in Botany, 4. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 239-297. CLEEVELY, R.J. 1983. World Palaeontological Collections. British Museum (Natural History). Mansell Publishing, London. EDWARDS, W.N. 1931. Guide to an Exhibition Illustrating the Early History of Palaeontology. Special Guide No. 8. British Museum (Natural History), London. EDWARDS, W.N. 1976. The Early History of Palaeontology. British Museum (Natural History), London. FORNASIERO, M. 1998. The Collections and the History of the University Palaeontological Museum in Padua. University of Padua Press, Padua. GORDON, W.T. 1935. Plant Life and the Philosophy of Geology. Report of British Association for Advancement of Science, Aberdeen, 1934,49-82. GOTHAN, W. & WEYLAND, H. 1954. Lehrbuch der Palaobotanik. Akademie, Berlin. GRANDORI, L. 1913a. La Flora dei Calcari Grigi del Veneto, Pt. 1. Memorie degli Istituti di Geologia dell'Universita di Padova, 2,45-112.

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GRANDORI, L. I9l3b. Intorno alia flora dei calcari grigi studiata da Achille de Zigno. Atti del' Accademia Scientifica Veneto-Trentino-Istriana, Anno, 6, 143-148 GRANDORI, L. 1915. Su di un seme mesozoico di pteridosperma e sulle sue affinita con forme paleozoiche e forme viventi. Atti del'Accademia Scientifica VenetoTrentino-Istriana, Anno, 8,107-116. HALLE, T.G. 1916. The Mesozoic Flora of Graham Land. Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Schwedischen Sudpolar-Expedition 1901-1903,3. HARRIS, T.M. 1961. The Yorkshire Jurassic Flora, Volume I (Thallophyta - Pteridophyta). British Museum (Natural History), London. HARRIS, T.M. 1964. The Yorkshire Jurassic Flora, Volume II (Caytoniales, Cycadales and Pteridosperms). British Museum (Natural History), London. HARRIS, T.M. 1969. The Yorkshire Jurassic Flora, Volume III (Bennettitales). British Museum (Natural History), London. HOLMES, G. 1997. The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy. Oxford University Press, Oxford. LINDLEY, J. & HUTTON, W. 1831-1837. The Fossil Flora of Great Britain: or Figures and Descriptions of the Vegetable Remains Found in a Fossil State in this country. Volume 1 (1831-1833); Volume 2 (1833-1835); Volume 3 (1835-1837). James Ridgeway, London. MORTON, A.G. 1981. History of Botanical Science: An Account of the Development of Botany From Ancient Times to the Present Day. Academic Press, London. NATHORST, A.G. 1886. Om floran Skanes Kolforande Bildningar. Sveriges geologiska undersokning, ser. C, 85,85-131. OMBONI, G. 1892. Achille de Zigno. Riunione della Societa Geologica Italiana, Vicenza, 1892, 5-55. PEARSON, H.L. 2002. Obituary; Alan Wesley (1926-2000). The Linnean, London, 18, (3), 48-52. SAPORTA, G. DE. 1884. Paleontologie francaise ou description des fossiles de la France. (2, Vegetaux), Plantes Jurassiques. Volume III Coniferes ou Aciculariees G. Mason, Paris. SAPORTA, G. DE. 1891. Paleontologie francaise ou description des fossiles de la France. Volume IV. Types Proangiospermiques et supplement final. G. Mason, Paris, 355-548. SCHIMPER, W.P 1870. Traite de paleontologie vegetale ou la flora du monde primitif, Volume I. J.B. Bailliere, Paris. SCOTT, A.C. 2001. Frederico Cesi and his field studies on the origin of fossils between 1610 and 1630. Endeavour, 25, (3) 93-103. SEWARD, A.C. 1898. Fossil Plants for Students of Botany and Geology, Volume I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. SEWARD, A.C. 1900. The Jurassic Flora, Pt. I. The Yorkshire Coast. Catalogue of the Mesozoic Plants in the Department of Geology, 3. British Museum (Natural History), London. SEWARD, A.C. 1904. The Jurassic Flora, Pt. 2. Liassic and Oolitic Floras of England. Catalogue of the Mesozoic Plants in the Department of Geology, 4. British Museum (Natural History), London. SEWARD, A.C. 1910. Fossil Plants: A Text-book for Students

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of Botany and Geology, Volume II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. SEWARD, A.C. 1917. Fossil Plants: A Text-book for Students of Botany and Geology, Volume III. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. SEWARD, A.C. 1919. Fossil Plants: A Text-book for Students of Botany and Geology, Volume IV Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. STORES, M.C. 1914. Palaeobotany: its past and its future. Knowledge, 37,15-24. VAN ERVE, A.W. 1977. Palynological investigation in the Lower Jurassic of the Vicentinian Alps (northeastern Italy). Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 23, 1-117. WESLEY, A. 1956. Contributions to the knowledge of the Flora of the Grey Limestones of Veneto; Part 1. Memorie degli Istituti di Geologica e Mineralogia dell'Universita diPadova, 19, 1-69. WESLEY, A. 1958. Contributions to the Knowledge of the Flora of the Grey Limestones of Veneto; Part II. Memorie degli Istituti di Geologica e Mineralogia dell'Universita di Padova, 21,1-57. WESLEY, A. 1965. The fossil flora of the Grey Limestones of Veneto, northern Italy, and its relationship to the other European floras of similar age. Palaeobotanist, 14,124-130. WESLEY, A. 1973. Jurassic plants, pp. 329-338; 5 figs. In: HALLAM A. (ed.) Atlas of Palaeobiogeography. Elsevier, Amsterdam. WESLEY, A. 1974. On the bennettitalean remains from the Lias of northern Italy. In: Symposium of Morphological and Stratigraphical Palaeobotany. Silver Jubilee Volume of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Special Publications, 2,66-72. ZEILLER, C.R. 1882. Observations sur quelques cuticules fossiles. Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Serie 6, Botanique, 13, 217. ZIGNO , A., DE. 1833. Plantae cryptogamae in Provincia Patavina hucusque observatae. University of Padua Press, Padua. ZIGNO , A. DE. 1843. Introduzione allo Studio della Geologia. University of Padua Press, Padua. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1850. On the stratified formations of the Venetian Alps. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 6,422-432. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1852. Fossile Pflanzen der Venetianer Alpen. Jahrbuch der koeniglichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, Vienna, 2, 171. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1853#. Nouveau gisement de poissons et de plantes fossiles. Bulletin Societe Geologique de France, ser. 2,10, 267. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1853&. Decouverte d'une flore jurassique analogue a celle de Scarborough dans les couches oolithiques des Alpes Venitiennes. Bulletin Societe Geologique de France, ser. 2,10, 286-289. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1853c. Sui terreni jurassici delle Alpi Venete e sulla flora fossile, che li distingue. Rivista Periodica della Imperiale Reale Accademia della Science di Padova, 1,1-14. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1853. (d) Sulle Cicadacee fossili dell'Oolite. Rivista Periodica della Imperiale Reale Accademia della Scienze di Padova, 1, 345-349. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1854. Vegetaux fossiles de la Venetie. Bulletin Societe Geologique de France, ser. 2,11,1-2.

ZIGNO, A., DE. 1856. Sulla flora fossile deil'oolite. Memorie dell'Imperialo Royalo Istituto Veneto di Scienze ecc, 6, 325-339. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1856-1867. Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae.Le piante fossili deil'oolite. Volume 1: Book 1 (1856); Book 2 (1858); Books 3-5 (1867). Padua University Press, Padua. ZIGNO, A., DE. 18590. Delle Alghe e delle Calamarie dei Terreni Oolitici. Rivista Periodica della Accadamia della Scienze diPadova, 1858,1-9. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1859£. Some observations on the Flora of the Oolite. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 16, 110-115. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1860. Ueber die Gattungen Pachypteris und Thinnfeldia. Verhandlungen der Koenig, lichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, 1860,1-2. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1861. Sopra un nuovo genere di felce fossile (Cycadopteris). Rivista scienze Atti dell'Istituto Veneto, Serie 3,6, 574-586. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1862. Sulle piante fossili del Trias di Recoaro raccolte dal prof. A. Massalongo. Memorie dell' Imperiale Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze ecc, II: 1-32. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1863. Sopra i depositi di piante fossili dell'America settentrionale, delle Indie e dell'Australia, che alcuni Autori riferiscono all'epoca oolitica. Revista periodica della Accademia della Scienze di Padova, 1862,1-14. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1864. Dichopteris, genus novum filicum fossilium. - Monografia del genre Dichopteris, nuovo genere di felce fossile. Rivista Istituto Memorie, 12, 211-225. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1865. Enumeratio filicum fossilium oolithicae: Osservazioni sulle felci fossili dell'Oolite, ed Enumerazione delle specie finora rinvenute nei varj piani di questa formazione, coll'a'giunta dei sinonimi, della descrizione dei generi e delle specie nuove, e di un prospetto della loro distribuzione geografica. Rivista Istituto Memorie, 1864,1-36. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1868. Descrizione di alcune Cicadeacee fossili rinvenute nelTOolite delle Alpi. Rivista scienze Atti del'Istituto Veneto, ser. 3,13, 1-16. ZIGNO, A., DE. 18690. Ueber die Jurassischen Bildungen in den Sette Comuni (Venetien). Verhandlungen der koeniglichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, 1869, 291. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1869&. Bemerkungen zu Prof. Schenks Referat ueber die Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae. Verhandlungen der koeniglichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, 1869, 307-310. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1871. Fossile Pflanzen aus Marmorschichten im Venetianischen. Verhandlungen der koeniglichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, 1871, 54. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1872. Sulle piante monocotiledoni dell'epoca giurese. Revista Periodica dell'Accademia di Padova, 1871, 1-10. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1873-1885. Flora fossilis formationis ooliticae, Volume 2: Book 1 (1873); Books 2 and 3 (1881); Books 4 and 5 (1885). Padua University Press, Padua. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1875. Einige Bemerkungen zu den Arbeiten des Herrn Dr. O. Feistmantel ueber die Flora von Rajmahal. Verhandlungen der koeniglichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, 1875,1-3. ZIGNO, A., DE. 1878. Sulla distribuzione geologica e geografica delle Conifere fossili. Rivista Periodica dell'Accademia diPadova, 1877,1-12.

The palaeobotanical beginnings of geological conservation: with case studies from the USA, Canada and Great Britain BARRY A. THOMAS Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales Aberystwyth, Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SA23 3AL, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract: The need to conserve geological features and palaeontological sites is an increasingly recognized part of conservation policy in many countries. In the USA, Canada and Great Britain this need was emphasized by the discovery in the 19th century of spectacular plant fossils that were in danger of disappearing through overcollecting or through the effects of weathering. People were spurred into action by these all too obvious dangers to save the plant fossils where they had been found as 'monuments' or 'records of the past'. The methodology for protection varied from one country to another through differences in both land ownership and legislation. The backgrounds to the discoveries, the reasons for their conservation, and the methods employed for their protection are outlined and discussed.

Fossil collecting can be traced back into antiquity but only really became a scientific pursuit towards the end of the 18th century. In the early years of the 19th century a number of important publications on plant fossils were published, such as Parkinson (1804) and Schlotheim (1820), although Sternberg (1820-1838) is now taken to be the first work for the valid publication of taxa. There were also the large and important works of Brongniart (1822, 1828-1837, 1837-1838) and Lindley & Hutton (1831-1837), together with others such as Artis (1825), Witham (1833) and Bowerbank (1840), that became available for people interested in the study of plant fossils. Interest there certainly was, because from that time on an ever-increasing number of scientific papers and publications on plant fossils began to be published documenting the new discoveries that were being made around the world. Much of the earlier published work relied on the efforts of amateur and professional collectors who gave or sold fossils to wealthy individuals or the new museums, but soon professional geologists began to make their own discoveries. A steady increase in demand for fossils and the pace of collecting were generally sustainable at first but some localities yielded such beautiful fossil material that commercialism crept in. Therefore, conflicts arose between the commercial interests and those people who perceived the scientific or intrinsic value of retaining the fossils where they were. Occasions occurred when the perceived value of preserving plant fossils where they were found outweighed the desire of others to remove them. This is especially true in the case of, what might be called, 'monuments to the past' such as fossil forests where removal and/or damage is all too obvious. The desire to preserve such 'monuments' led to the need for official geological conservation and this paper looks

at the way in which this arose in Great Britain, the USA and Canada. In all three countries, the history of geological conservation is inextricably linked with the study of plant fossils, particularly with trees or tree-like trunks that are found still in their original stands. The desire to protect such 'fossil forests' was approached in different ways in the three countries, which, together with the legislation that followed, in part reflects the differences in land ownership, that is the ease of control of private v. public land.

Palaeobotanical discoveries The first important date in the history of geological conservation is 1842, which was 5 years into the reign of Queen Victoria. It was also the year that Charles Darwin moved into Downe House in Kent and wrote the 3 5-page draft of his theory that would eventually lead to the publication of his Origin of Species in 1859. However, it was not in Britain, but across the Atlantic that these important finds were being made; discoveries that would eventually lead people down the road of geological conservation.

Canada The British geologist Sir Charles Lyell spent the summer of 1842 in Canada studying the Upper Carboniferous Coal Measures exposed in the cliffs and foreshore along the Bay of Fundy in the Province of Nova Scotia. Here, in the cliffs at South Joggins (Fig. 1), he first saw the extensive layers of 'fossil forests' of lycophyte trunks (Fig. 2) (Lyell 1843, 1845). Lyell was so impressed with the site that he revisited it in 1852 with another geologist, William Dawson, who was Superintendent of

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,95-110.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Fig. 1. Locality map of the Joggins Fossil Forests, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Education for Nova Scotia. While they were surveying the area they discovered vertebrate remains within the upright lycophyte trunks that led to a number of scientific papers (Dawson 1853, 1859 1882; Lyell & Dawson 1853; see also Ferguson 1988; Scott 1998). Dawson went on to become Principal of McGill University, Montreal in 1855, although he continued to travel throughout the Province collecting plant fossils for his palaeobotanical research. He continued to visit the site over the next 30 years publishing a further account in 1882 and mentioning the upright stumps in his more general works (Dawson 1855, 1888). Dawson was knighted in 1883 (see Andrews 1980 for biographic details).

The USA While Bell was working in Nova Scotia, the United States was in the throes of its westward expansion. The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845, Oregon purchased in 1846 and the boundary with Canada fixed through the Oregon Treaty, but, most importantly for westward expansion of the United States, California, Arizona and New Mexico were taken from Mexico in 1848. There was then an urgent need for communications and transport between the more established states on the east coast and the new settlements on the west coast, but the problem was that the route lay through Indian lands. Therefore, US Cavalry expeditions were dispatched first to pacify the native Indians and then to seek out the best routes for wagon trails and later for a transcontinental railroad. In 1849, 8 years after Brunei had constructed the

railway from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, Colonel John M. Washington led the first US Cavalry military expedition into Navajo lands, in what was to become the state of Arizona. With the expedition was Lieutenant James H. Simpson of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. On 5 September Simpson climbed down into a nearby canyon where he 'found protruding horizontally from the wall, its end only sticking out, a petrified tree of about a foot in diameter' (Simpson 1850). Recognizing the importance of this discovery, Simpson sent pieces of the wood to Washington, DC together with his report. Unfortunately, the subsequent fate of these specimens is unknown (much of this information on the Petrified Forest in Arizona comes from Ash 1969, 1972, which I shall not quote repetitively throughout this text). At the same time that Britain was celebrating the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851, a further US Army military expedition, led by Captain Lorenzo Sitgreves, was exploring the area some distance south of Colonel Washington's route (a few miles south of what is now the Petrified Forest National Park). On 28 September 1851 they found large deposits of petrified wood: 'The ground was strewed with pebbles of agate, jasper, and chalcedony, and masses of what appeared to have been stumps of trees petrified into jasper, beautifully striped with bright shades of red (the predominating colour), blue, white and yellow' (Sitgreaves 1854). The physician and naturalist on the expedition, Dr S.W. Woodhouse, was the first scientifically trained person to see and write about the trees: 'we passed the remains of a large petrified tree, the wood of which was agatized. It was broken in pieces, as if by a fall, and its root was uphill. It must have been

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Section of the cliffs of the South Joggins, near Minudie, JSfova Scotia.

Fig. 2. The Upper Carboniferous Fossil Forests, South Joggins. (a) Field observations of Lyell (1845). (b) A section of the strata with details of the upright fossil plants at Coal Mine Point above coal 15 (Lyell & Dawson 1853).

upwards of three feet in diameter' (Woodhouse 1854). One of the fragments that Woodhouse collected was recently located at the Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia (Spamer 1989). Two years later, in 1853, Lieutenant Amiel W. Whipple set out into the same area leading one of the several expeditions that were exploring possible routes to the Pacific. On 2 December they found vast quantities of petrified wood in a dry riverbed that Whipple named Lithodendron Creek (later known as Lithodendron Wash). Whipple's report includes the first published illustration of petrified wood. He wrote: The banks of Lithodendron Creek are 40 feet in height and composed of red, sandy marl. The width between the bluffs seems nearly a mile. Quite a forest of petrified trees was discovered here today (Dec. 2, 1853) prostrate and partly buried in deposits of red marl. They are converted into

beautiful specimens of variegated jasper. One trunk was measured 10 feet in diameter and more than 100 feet in length. Some of the stumps appear as if they had been charred by fire before being converted into stone. The main portions of the trees have a dark brown colour; the smaller branches are of a reddish hue. Fragments are strewn over the surface for miles. (Quoted in Merrill 1911.)

Whipple's was the first expedition into the area that was accompanied by a geologist, in this case a French-Swiss mining engineer called Jules Marcou. Marcou (1855) described the wood as coniferous and the age as comparable to the German Keuper (an essentially correct age). William P. Blake, a geologist for the US Pacific Railroad Explorations and Surveys, completed the final report because Marcou had returned to Europe because of poor health. The German artist Baldwin Mollhausen also accompanied Whipple and later published a book

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describing his experiences and reported the discovery of the petrified wood. Mollhausen illustrated the logs and sent samples to the German palaeobotanist Heinrich Robert Goeppert who provided a note on them for inclusion in his book (Mollhausen 1858) saying 'the six specimens all belong to the coniferous species' and 'A specimen which I examined with particular attention seemed to belong to the Araucaria type, and after having been considered with reference to the already described species, was named in honour of its discoverer Araucarites Mollhausianus'. Unfortunately for Mollhausen this name was subsequently shown to be a nomen nudum and, therefore, invalid (see Ash 1972 for photographs of Simpson, Whipple, Marcou and Mollhausen). Yet another US Army expedition led by Lieutenant Joseph C. Ives discovered more petrified wood (this time of Late Cretaceous age) about 60 miles north of Lithodendron Wash on 7 May 1858. The expedition's physician and naturalist this time was J.S. Newberry who examined the wood and reported that it was coniferous (Newberry 1861). Newberry on a later US Army exploring expedition under Captain Macomb went on to discover and describe Triassic plants in northern New Mexico. He eventually became the first Director of the Geological Survey of Ohio and wrote over 200 articles and books (Ash 1972; and see Andrews 1980 for a biographical sketch). Soon after this last discovery, expeditions were curtailed for a few years because of the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Indian wars that followed. Many of the soldiers from the US Army expeditions fought in these wars. In 1878, after the fighting had finished, the General of the United States Army, William T. Sherman, instructed Lt. Col. P.T. Swaine, the commanding officer of Fort Wingate in New Mexico, to send two petrified logs to Washington, DC for display in the Smithsonian Institution. Frank Knowlton of the US National Museum (see Andrews 1980 for a biographical sketch) described the specimens and gave them the new name of Araucarioxylon arizonicum n.sp. (Knowlton 1889; see also Ash & Creber 2000).

Great Britain In Britain everything seemed outwardly calm and organized, and in 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park. In January of the same year William Crawford Williamson became Professor of Natural History in Manchester. The emphasis in Britain was very much on studying in the laboratory fossils that had been collected by others. Nevertheless, geologists were fascinated by the bases of trees being found in apparent growth

position in the Coal Measures. Many were found underground in coal mines, but occasionally they were found on the surface. In 1873 excavations for new buildings in the grounds of the Wadsley Lunatic Asylum (now Middlewood Hospital) in Sheffield uncovered a group of in situ lycophytes stumps. The Professor of Geology at Sheffield at the time was H.C. Sorby, who saw the importance of preserving the bases and ensured that special outbuildings were constructed to protect them (Sorby 1875). This discovery was 13 years before Williamson saw and removed the enormous Stigmaria that is now in the Manchester Museum (Williamson 1887,1896). Such stands of stigmarian stumps are not that rare in the Carboniferous. In 1840 Buckland told how he had seen fossil tree stumps in a sandstone quarry at Balgray, 3 miles north of Glasgow (Buckland 1840). Then in 1868 a small group of five or six stumps were uncovered in another nearby sandstone quarry (Young 1868). However, in late 1887 a cluster of 11 Namurian in situ stumps was uncovered on the floor of an old quarry in the new Victoria Park in Glasgow that had been opened to the public on July 5 that year to honour the Queen's Jubilee (Fig. 3) (Young & Glen 1888). The Scottish palaeobotanist Robert Kidston, who lived in Stirling (for biographical details see Crookall 1938; Andrews 1980: Edwards 1986), became involved in their excavation and interpretation (Kidston 1888, 1901), and may have helped persuade Glasgow Council to protect them and preserve them for future generations. A glassroofed shelter was constructed to house this now world-famous Fossil Grove (Fig. 4) (for further information see Macgregor & Walton 1948, 1972; Mclean 1973; Lawson & Lawson 1976; Gastaldo 1986; Gunning 1995; Cleal & Thomas 1995).

Site conservation The USA The northern part of the Arizona Territory (not a State until 1912) had begun to be settled by the late 1870s, encouraged by the Desert Land Act of 1877 (US Statutes at Large, Volume 19, Chap. 107, p. 377) that granted up to one section - 640 acres - of public land to any citizen at a cost of $1.25 an acre. Souvenir hunters soon started to take wood from the petrified forests. George F. Kunz was the first person to publish accessible accounts of the large deposits of highly coloured wood in the area often referred to in those days as Chalcedony Park and stated his opinion that the silicified wood found there was more beautiful than any other found throughout the world (Kunz 1885, 1886). Kunz also reported that there were about 1 million tons of silicified wood scattered over

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Fig. 3. Two views of the then newly discovered Fossil Grove in Victoria Park, Glasgow. (From Gunning 1995, with permission from the Glasgow Museums.)

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Fig. 4. Stigmarias protected inside the fossil grove building.

1000 acres and discussed the commercial value of the wood, estimating that only about 1000 tons was suitable for ornamental work. His 1886 publication was aimed more for the popular market, so the news of these fossil forests quickly spread. Professional collectors and jewellers came in increasing numbers to take away the smaller trunks and even to blow up the larger trunks, in the so-called Crystal Forest area, in their search for the amethyst crystals that could occasionally be found in cavities in the wood. Transportation was, of course, still a major problem dissuading collectors from taking the largest trunks, but the new railroads soon alleviated that difficulty. The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad was being constructed to meet up with the Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad, and by June 1887 trains were able to run from Kansas City to Galveston on the Texas coast. Then the railroad was continued westwards right through the middle of the Petrified Forest to Flagstaff and on to Los Angeles. Kunz (1890) published further accounts of the petrified forests that encouraged more people to collect and transport away even larger quantities of petrified wood for inlay work, mosaics, tabletops and even floor tiles. The Drake Company, in Sioux

Falls, South Dakota, even cut and polished the better and more highly coloured logs and used them for ornamental purposes. They transported train-car loads of tree sections from '6 inches to 5 feet in diameter' and from '50 to 2500 pounds in weight'. At Sioux Falls the trunks were cemented together with calcine or cement and ground down for about a week, starting with large slabs of Sioux Falls quartzite and finishing with emery. The final polishing was with tin oxide and then 'tripoli' on feltcovered wheels. The sawing process was kept secret (Anon. 1888). The Drake Company exhibited at the incredibly popular and influential World's Fair at Chicago in 1893 where millions of Americans visited over the 6 months it was open. In the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, where manufactured goods were next to items of historic or artistic interest, they exhibited a display of the wood sawn into slabs and polished to form table tops and other pieces of furniture. The Arizona Territory also displayed trunks of petrified wood in their exhibition. The Drake Company then showed their products in New York at Davis Callamar & Co. Ltd on Broadway and 21st Street to 5th Avenue (Anon. 1894). The local people expressed disquiet at this ever-increasing rate of removal, but the problem was that the petrified forests were on railway land, or on public land managed by the Federal Government, so there was effectively no deterrent for the fossil collectors. There was the 1872 Mining Law, which provided for the location and patent of certain mineral deposits such as gold, silver, lead and zinc, but fortunately it could not be extended to include petrified wood or there would have been a claims rush. Eventually, in the early 1890s, came a proposal that was so outrageous it would change public opinion across the whole of the Arizona Territory. A crushing mill was constructed in the nearby railway town of Adamana expressly to turn the petrified logs in what is now Chalcedony Park into abrasives. So, in 1895 the Territory's Legislature petitioned Congress to create a National Park for the petrified forests. They must have been encouraged in their petition in the knowledge that not only had Yellowstone National Park been created in 1872 (US Statutes at Large, Vol. 17, Chap. 324, pp. 32-33 [S. 392]), and Sequoia (US Statutes at Large, Vol. 26, Chap. 926, p. 478 [HR. 1570]) and Yosemite (US Statutes at Large, Vol. 26, Chap. 1263, pp. 650-652 [HR. 1263]) National Parks in 1890, but more so because Wind Cave in South Dakota had been declared a National Park (US Statutes at Large, Vol. 32, part. 1, Chap. 634, pp. 765-766 [Public Act No. 16]). The more spectacular scenic sites of the far west were established for 'the benefit and enjoyment of the people' but Wind Cave was preserved because of its unusual features. Civil War sites, Indian wars

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Fig. 5. Views in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, (a) The Agate Bridge in the Jasper Forest, c. 1908. (b) The Agate Bridge in 1923 with the new concrete supporting beam, (c) A balanced log in the Rainbow Forest about 1950. (d) Broken logs in the Rainbow Forest in 1935. (e) A large log with the Painted Desert in the background in 1929. (a, American Memory, Library of Congress; b-e, courtesy of the US National Park Service.)

sites and Pueblo archaeological sites were also coming under protection. Although there were fossil forests preserved within the Yellowstone National Park they were not discovered until 1878 by Dr William Holmes of the US Geological Survey for the Territories, some 6 years after the park was created. So, as yet, there was no national park created specifically for fossils (Holmes 1883; Knowlton 1928). Congress took notice of the petition and the palaeobotanist Professor Lester F. Ward, of the US

Geological Survey (see Andrews 1980 for a biographic sketch), was instructed to survey the area of the fossil forests and make his recommendation on their suitability for a National Park. This he did, in November 1899, and recommended the next year that the area should be withdrawn from public use and that a national park created to protect the fossil forests (Ward 1900, 1901). The area was, indeed, quickly withdrawn from public use, but several more years passed before it was really protected. On 8

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Fig. 6. The changing outline of the Petrified Forest from its creation as a National Monument to the present-day National Park. (Based on Merrill 1911, and Ash & Creber 2000). June 1906 Congress passed the Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities (34 Stat. 225) and gave the President authorization to declare National Monuments by Public Proclamation to preserve national monuments for the preservation of features of historic, prehistoric and scientific interest, and forbidding unauthorized injury of objects of antiquity. Devil's Tower in Wyoming was declared as the first National Monument, but on 8 December of the same year President Theodore Roosevelt declared Chalcedony Park as the Petrified Forest National Monument on the grounds of the site's 'scientific interest and value', making it the world's first legally protected palaeontological site (Fig. 5). It was about 90 square miles (60776 acres = 24500

hectares) in size, but, because the allotment of the area was thought to be too generous by some, the US Geological Survey undertook a more detailed survey in 1910. George Merrill of the US National Museum was then sent out by Congress in 1911 to make a recommendation for the size of the park and, being a hard rock geologist, did not believe that all the deposits of petrified wood needed to be protected. His recommendation brought about a Presidential proclamation on 31 July 1911 that reduced the Park in size to about 40 square miles (25920 acres = 10450 hectares). Neither the northern forest, including Lithodendron Wash, the Painted Desert nor the more southerly Rainbow Forests were included within the area declared at this time, although 2500

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Fig. 7. Petrified wood for sale just outside the National Park in 1939. (American Memory, Library of Congress.)

acres (= 1008 hectares) of Painted Desert were added to the Monument in 1932. Finally, in December 1962 an enlarged area of 93500 acres (=37700 hectares) was declared a National Park (Fig. 6). Much petrified wood remained outside the Park and was collected by tourists and dealers alike (Fig. 7). Incidentally, the first Park Superintendent, Stevenson, allowed each visitor to the park to take away about 81bs of wood as souvenirs (Lubick 1996). There was also the ever-present confusion about the rights of individuals to lay claim to fossil wood sites under the Mining Act 1872. It was not until 1962 that the Petrified Wood Act (originating as an amendment to the Mining Act) was passed, which confirmed that petrified wood could not be considered to be valuable minerals and, therefore, could not be 'claimed' by individuals. It did, however, also direct the Secretary of the Interior 'to provide by regulation that limited quantities of petrified wood may be removed without charge from those public lands which he shall specify'. The present rules for noncommercial collecting without a permit limit quantities to 25 Ibs in weight per day and one piece, but not more than 250 Ibs (= 113.5 kg) per person per year. Any specimen more than 250 Ibs requires a permit (available from the Bureau of Land Management, which is authorized to do this by the Federal Land Policy Management Act 1976). Commercial collecting (including sale or barter of private collections) is governed by the Materials Act of 1947 (for further details see Wolberg & Reinhard 1997). There is some potential for confusion here because, in addition to Federal lands, there are Stateowned lands where the state can impose its own rules and regulations. Arizona State requires

permits, available from the Arizona State Museum, for collecting anything at all on land controlled by the state (Arizona Revised Statutes Annotated, Title 41, Chap. 4.1, Art. 4). Any specimens must be placed in a public repository and any violation knowingly committed is a class 2 misdemeanour. Also Navajo Nation Policy maintains that all fossils on lands of the Navajo Nation are the property of the Navajo Nation (Fig. 8). The Tribal Minerals Department would seem to be the only authority to issue permits to collect fossils on Navajo lands (Wolberg & Reinard 1997). Arizona, since 1988, has included petrified wood as one of its state symbols together with the gemstone turquoise, plus certain flowers and animals. This is a success story, although a comparable situation in South Dakota was a disaster (see later in the Discussion).

Great Britain As explained above, the two British clusters of in situ stumps were protected in buildings. Wadsley was saved through the action of individuals and Glasgow through the action of an enlightened local authority. The real point to remember here is that all land in Britain is owned privately or by the Crown, therefore the lycophyte stumps were owned together with the land on which they were sited. The implications of land ownership were constantly in the public eye throughout the 19th century because of the increasing number of Land Enclosure Acts taking away the commoners' rights (Rackham 1986; Thomas 1999).

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Fig. 8. A recent photograph of a partially reconstructed building made up of sections of petrified logs in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. Navajo Indians probably constructed this building, now known as the Agate House, about 600 years ago. (Courtesy of S. Ash.)

The Sea Bird Protection Act 1869 initiated wildlife conservation legislation in Britain and it was followed 20 years later by the founding of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and at about the same time (1888) the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves started purchasing land for biological reserves. However, there was no relevant legislation for the protection of either biological or geological sites until the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. This permitted the creation of National Parks in England and Wales, and Nature Reserves in England, Wales and Scotland. It also included the provision for Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) designed so that small areas of conservation interest could be identified and their scientific interest taken into account when changes of land use were proposed. This Act and the subsequent Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 ensure that SSSIs are given precise boundaries, are supported by information on their scientific importance and that a list of Potentially Damaging Operations (PDOs) are drawn up to safeguard their integrity. Once sites are selected the relevant statutory body (the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), English Nature (EN) or Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH)) have a duty to notify the owners/occupiers before the designation is confirmed. The landowner must give notice in advance to the relevant statutory body of any

Potentially Damaging Operations that would destroy the scientific interest of the site. There was a provision for earth science conservation in both the 1949 and 1981 Acts, but action on identifying and notifying such sites lagged behind that for biological conservation until a programme was launched by the Nature Conservancy Council (the forerunner of CCW, EN and SNH) to conserve the most significant earth science sites in Great Britain as SSSIs. This is the Geological Conservation Review (for further details see Wimbledon et al. 1995; Ellis et al. 1996). Both the Wadsley and the Victoria Park fossil forests are now listed as SSSIs and are in the Geological Conservation Review (Cleal 1988; Cleal & Thomas 1995). The conservation agencies in Britain pride themselves in being at the forefront of geological conservation, and legal protection for sites has now been in effect for over half a century. However, management of the sites is the key to success for many geological SSSIs. Some need constant protection against the effects of the weather, and without the building it is doubtful if any of the Victoria Park stumps would have survived to today. The major difference here between the 1949 and 1981 SSSI notifications is that the latter carried some degree of responsibility (albeit limited) to protect the site as required under EC and international legislation. Since the 1949 Act

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Fig. 9. Recent restoration work on the Wadsley Fossil Forest in progress.

there had been the gradual evolution from 'passive' conservation via planning legislation to more active conservation. The original Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) developed an active, although informal, site-clearing programme that needed the permission of the owner. Then the NCC were given powers under the Countryside Act 1968 to enter into management agreements and grant aid for the purpose, although management was still not identified as a primary purpose. The 1981 Act's provision for SSSIs relied on the voluntary co-operation of landowners to protect the interest on their land. Doing nothing and allowing the site to deteriorate was still not an offence. Victoria Park was first notified as an SSSI in 1954, long before becoming a GCR site, and is still in good condition through maintenance of the building by Glasgow City Council. Wadsley, in Sheffield, was apparently not notified until 1990 and already had been left to deteriorate for at least 40 years. The buildings collapsed long ago and many of the stumps have largely disintegrated. Some voluntary remedial conservation work has been carried out in recent years guided by staff of the Sheffield City Museum (Fig. 9). The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Section 75 and Schedule 9) replaces the provisions for SSSIs. Although there is the same notification procedure, details must now be published in at least one local paper to ensure that the public become aware of the existence of SSSIs. More importantly, the notification must now contain a management statement signifying that SSSI status is not merely a

label. The Act refers to enhancement, recognizing that management may require some positive action. Indeed, management is now a primary objective of designation and the nature conservation bodies hold the view that management statements should be simple and detail their aspirations for the site. The Act also gives the conservation bodies the power to intervene and serve notice of a management scheme to the landowner. Section 28(4) allows a Management Notice to be served on the landowner requiring him to carry out work. It also permits the conservation body to undertake the work and recover expenses from the landowner or even to compulsory purchase if management agreements cannot be reached or if an agreement has been breached. At last there is the legislation available to ensure that geological sites are not allowed to deteriorate, but it remains to be seen if the conservation bodies act to do this.

Canada Legislation was even later in Canada. It was the plunder of tree stumps from Joggins by researchers and museums outside Nova Scotia, especially during the 1960s, that prompted the Nova Scotia Government to pass the Historical Objects Protection Act 1970 (Statutes of Nova Scotia 1970); the first Province to pass such an Act. A 1 mile-stretch of Joggins cliff was designated as a Protected Site. This Act was repealed in 1980 and replaced by the Special

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Places Protection Act 1980 (Statutes of Nova Scotia 1980) revised in 1989 (Revised Statutes, Chap. 438) and amended in 1990, clause 45 and 1994-95, clause 17 (see http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fossrls/protect/act. htm). This retained Joggins as a Protected Site, although Ferguson (1988) maintains that it is not a long enough stretch of coast and does not include the intertidal zone where many bases are to be found. The site may be enlarged in the near future. The Act allowed for the placing of appropriate signs indicating that the land is a protected site, although this is not a requirement. As yet there is no sign at Joggins, although there are plans to erect one. The Special Places Protection Act also made it illegal to collect fossils anywhere in Nova Scotia without a obtaining a Heritage Research Permit (issued by the Nova Scotia Museum to serious scientists for a period of 1 year). There is also a version of permit intended for moderate, non-commercial collecting by amateurs and tourists who wish to avoid breaking the law. The Act permits fossils collected without a permit to be seized and become the property of the Province (Revised Statutes, Chap. 438, section 11; 1994-95, clause 17, section 6). A permit is also needed to export them to other Provinces and in Canada there is also the Federal Cultural Property Export Act 1975, which controls the export of fossils from Canada. This all seems rather draconian, but, as Ferguson (1988) points out, there is a tacit understanding that casual collecting is permissible without a permit, even of loose material on the beach at Joggins. Implementing the Special Places Protection Act has been the mandate of the Nova Scotia Museum. In accepting that implementing the Act has been problematic, and that changing times suggested that the Act and its supporting policies be revisited, the Museum held 1-day meetings in November 1994 and May 1995. A visionary document resulted, entitled Towards a Learning Culture . . . The Vision of Fossil Resources Management in Nova Scotia, which identifies key strategic goals that define the direction for legislative, policy and programme initiatives, is available at http://museum.gov.ns.ca/ fossils/protect/vision.htm. Although the main thrust is still to control collecting through issuing permits, there is the realization that 'Over-regulation of small-scale occasional collecting for individual pleasure or learning, for example by children or tourists, must be avoided'. The Halifax Museum has now even issued guidelines on Protecting the Past in which it is explained, 'You may collect one or two loose fossils still. Do not disturb anything still in the bedrock'. And tips for collecting fossils: 'Do not collect too many specimens; it is a long walk home.. . Limit yourself to one or two good specimens, rather than keeping everything that catches your eye'. See http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fossils/protect/info.htmfor

further information. Thankfully, prosecution for collecting a few plant fossils does not now seem likely.

Discussion As we have seen, the moves in USA, Great Britain and Nova Scotia to preserve plant fossils in the places where they were discovered were the first of the strictly geological sites to be protected. However, the reasons and the methodology for doing so were very different. In the USA and Nova Scotia overcollecting was the reason for initiating protective legislation. Even then, though, there was a major difference because in the USA it was commercial exploitation while in Canada it was palaeontological exploitation. The Fossil Forest in Arizona was protected by specific decree, while the stumps in Nova Scotia were protected by a blanket province-wide ban on collecting without a permit. Both systems have worked well for these two sites, although in the case of the USA preventative legislation was by no means certain without proper management. For example, the 320 acre Fossil Cycad National Park in South Dakota was created on 21 October 1922 to preserve an exposure of Cretaceous forest of hundreds of fossilized cycadeoides. Interestingly, Wieland (for biographical details see Andrews 1980), who had published the major work on these cycadeoides (Wieland 1916), used the Homestead Act in 1920 to gain control of the land and the fossils. He then gave the land back to the government for the creation of the Monument, but not before removing all the large exposed specimens (Santucci & Santucci 1998). The site was, therefore, depleted before it was created a monument and there were only a few smaller bits and pieces lying around. This did not escape the notice of the National Park Service, which soon after Wieland's death in 1953 agitated to have the site removed from its protection. Congress de-authorized the Monument on 1 September 1957. However, as Santucci & Santucci (1998) point out, the legislation de-authorizing the site still maintained that any fossils found on the site would become the property of the Federal Government; an interesting anomaly since the de-authorization legislation was passed because there were supposed to be no more fossils. In fact the site does contain fossils because cycadeoids were discovered when a new road was constructed. Some cycadeoids were given to the South Dakota School of Mining while the rest were reburied under the new road. Now a draft amendment of the South Dakota Resource Management Plan prepared by the Bureau of Land Management suggests that the area should be conserved for its 'geologic and paleontologic values for future geologists to study and enjoy'. If this amend-

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ment comes into force and since no National Park Services area now contains fossil cycadeoids the clear implication is that the Fossil Cycad National Monument should never have been de-authorized. The situation may be altering again in the United States because on 2 October 2001 the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act was introduced into the House of Congress (107th Congress 1st Session H.R. 2974). This is a bill To provide for the protection of paleontological resources on Federal lands, to promote the systematic compilation of baseline paleontological resource data, science-based decision making, and accurate public education, to provide for a unified management policy regarding paleontological resources on Federal Lands, to promote legitimate public access to fossil resources on Federal lands, to encourage informed stewardship of the resources through educational, recreational, and scientific use of the paleontological resources on Federal lands, and for other purposes'. The purpose appears to be an all-encompassing Preservation Act, but is really aimed to protect rare fossils and all vertebrate fossils, and prevent overexploitation by commercial collectors. Permits would be available for collectors, but all collections would remain the property of the United States and should be placed in approved repositories. Amateur collecting of rocks, minerals, and invertebrate and plant fossils on Federal lands would not be affected by this Act. In Great Britain there was no real danger of commercial or palaeontological exploitation of the two fossil forests, the threat instead came from exposure and subsequent weathering. It was, therefore, action at the local level that really protected the Wadsley and Victoria Park stumps, not the legislation that came in much later. This, apparently, more casual approach in Britain reflects the difference in countrywide land ownership between the three countries. In the USA, states such as Arizona have both Federal and State public land, and in Canada provinces like Nova Scotia have Provincial as well as Provincial Crown land. In Britain, however, the Crown, individuals or companies own all land and there is no public land as such. Even National Nature Reserves are owned by the Conservation Agencies and are not public land. Although today there is concern about overcollecting (Norman 1992) and there is pressure building for control of exports of particularly scientifically valuable specimens from Britain, the draconian laws on collecting plant fossils in Nova Scotia and those for the Arizona petrified woods are never likely to be passed in the UK. I am very grateful to S.R. Ash (New Mexico), CJ. Cleal (Wales), D. Skilliter (Canada) and L.M. Warren (Wales) for information and their helpful comments on the manuscript.

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I also thank S. Ash, the Glasgow Museum and for the use of their photographs.

References ANDREWS, H.N. 1980. The Fossil Hunters. In Search of Ancient Plants. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. ANON. 1888. The petrified trees of Arizona. Manufacturer and Builder, 20, (6), 131-132. ANON. 1894. The petrified forest of Arizona. Manufacturer and Builder, 26, (5), 102-104. ARTIS, E.T. 1825. Antediluvian Phytology, the author, London. ASH, S.R. 1969. Ferns from the Chinle Formation (Upper Trias sic) in the Fort Wingate Area, New Mexico. US Geological Survey, Professional Paper, 613-D. ASH, S.R. 1972. The search for plant fossils in the Chinle Formation. In: BREED, C.S. & BREED, WJ. (eds) Investigations in the Triassic Chinle Formation. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin, 47,45-58. ASH, S.R. & CREBER, G.T. 2000. The late Triassic Araucarioxylon arizonicum trees of the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, USA. Palaeontology, 43,15-28. BOWERBANK, J.S. 1840. A History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay. John van Voorst, London. BRONGNIART, A. 1822. Sur la classification et la distribution des vegeteau fossiles en general, et sur ceux des terrains de sediment superieur en particulier. Memoires Museum de Histoire Naturelle, Paris, 8, 203-348. BRONGNIART, A. 1828-1837. Histoire des vegetataux fossiles ou recherches botaniques et geologiques sur les vegetataux renfermes dans les diverses couches du globe, Volume 1: Parts 1 and 2 (1828); Part 3 (1829); Part 4, (1830); Parts 5 and 6 (1831); Part 7 (1833); Parts 8 and 9 (1834); Part 10 (1936); Parts 11 and 12 (1837). G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. BRONGNIART, A. 1837-1838. Histoire des vegetataux fossiles ou rechesches botaniques et geologiques sur les vegetataux renfermes dans les diverses couches du globe, Volume 2: Part 13 (1837); Parts 14 and 15 (1838). G. Dufour & E.d'Ocagne, Paris. BUCKLAND, W. 1840. Anniversary Address to the Geological Society of London. Proceedings of the Geological Society, London, III, 231. CLEAL, CJ. 1988. British Palaeobotanical Sites. Special Papers in Palaeontology, 40, 57-71. CLEAL, CJ. & THOMAS, B.A. 1995. Palaeozoic Palaeobotany of Great Britain. Geological Conservation Review Series No. 9. Chapman & Hall, London. CROOKALL, R. 1938. The Kidston Collection of Fossil Plants, with an Account of the Life and Work of Robert Kidston. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. HMSO, London. DAWSON, J.W 1853. Of the coal measures of the South Joggins, Nova Scotia. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 10, 1-51. DAWSON, J.W. 1855. The Geology of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island or Acadian Geology. Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh (other editions 1868,1878,1891). DAWSON, J.W 1859. On a terrestrial mollusk, a chilognathus myriapod and some new species of reptiles

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from the coal-formation of Nova Scotia. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 16, 268-277. DAWSON, J.W. 1882. On the results of recent explorations of erect trees containing animal remains in the coal formation of Nova Scotia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 173,621-659. DAWSON, J.W. 1888. The Geological History of Plants. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London. EDWARDS, D. 1986. Robert Kidston The most professional palaeobotanist. A tribute on the 60th anniversary of his death. Forth Naturalist and Historian, 8,65-93. ELLIS, N.V. BOWEN, D.Q. et al 1996. An Introduction to the Geological Conservation Review. Geological Conservation Review Series No. 1. Joint Nature Conservation Committee. FERGUSON, L. 1988. The 'Fossil Cliffs' at Joggins, Nova Scotia: A Canadian Case Study. Palaeontology, Special Papers, 40,191-200. GASTALDO, R.A. 1986. An explanation for lycopod configuration. 'Fossil Grove' Victoria Park, Glasgow. Scottish Journal of Geology, 22,77-83. GUNNING, R. 1995. The Fossil Grove. Glasgow Museum, Glasgow. HOLMES, W.H. 1883. Twelfth Annual Report. US Geological Survey of the Territories, 1878. KIDSTON, R. 1888. Note on the nature of fossil trees found at Whiteinch. Transactions of the Geological Society, Glasgow, 8,235-6. KIDSTON, R. 1901. Excursion to the Fossil Grove, Whiteinch, Glasgow. British Association Handbook, Glasgow. KNOWLTON, F.H. 1889. New species of fossil wood (Araucarioxylon) from Arizona and New Mexico. Proceedings of the US National Museum, 1888, 11, 1-4. KNOWLTON, F.H. 1928. Fossil Forests of the Yellowstone National Park. US Government Printing Office, Washington. KUNZ, G.F. 1885. On the agatized woods and the malachite, azurite, etc., from Arizona. Transactions of the New York Academy of Science, 5, 9-11. KUNZ, G.F. 1886. Agatized and jasperised wood of Arizona. Popular Science Monthly, 28, 362-367. KUNZ, G.F. 1890. Gems and Precious Stones of North America. New York Science Publishing Company. (Reprinted by Dover Publications, New York, 1968.) LAWSON, J.A. & LAWSON, J.D. 1976. Geology Explained Around Glasgow and South-west Scotland, Including Arran. David & Charles, Newton Abbott. LINDLEY, J. & HUTTON, W. 1831-1837. The Fossil Flora of Great Britain; or, Figures and Descriptions of the Vegetable Remains Found in a Fossil State in this Country, Volume 1 (1833); Volume 2 (1835); Volume 3 (1837). John Ridgeway, London. LUBICK, G.P. 1996. Petrified Forest National Park: A Wilderness Bound in Time. University of Arizona Press. LYELL, C. 1843. On the upright fossil trees found at different levels in the coal strata of Cumberland, Nova Scotia. Proceedings of the Geological Society, London, 4,176-178. LYELL, C. 1845. Travels in North America (2 volumes). Murray, London. LYELL, C. & DAWSON, J.W. 1853. On the remains of a

reptile (Dendrerpeton acadianus, Wyman and Owen) and of a land shell discovered in the interior of an erect fossil tree in the coal measures of Nova Scotia. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 9,58-63. MACGREGOR, M. & WALTON, J. 1948. The Story of the Fossil Grove at Glasgow Public Parks and Botanical Gardens, Glasgow. Glasgow D.C. Parks Department, Glasgow. MACGREGOR, M. & WALTON, J. 1972. The Story of the Fossil Grove at Glasgow Public Parks and Botanical Gardens, Glasgow, rev. edn. Glasgow D.C. Parks Department, Glasgow. MARCOU, J. 1855. Resume of a geological reconnaissance extending from Napoleon at the junction with the Arkansas with the Mississippi to the Pueblo de los Angeles, in California. In: WHIPPLE, A.W. et al. (eds.) Report of Exploration for a Railway Route Near the Thirty-fifth Parallel. US 33rd Congress, 1st session, House Executive Document 129, Vol. 18(2), 44-80; also US 33rd Congress, 2nd session, Senate Executive Document 78 and House Executive Document 91, Vol. 3(4), 165-167 [1856]. MCLEAN, A.C. 1973. Excursion 1: Fossil Grove. In: BLUCK, B.J. (ed.) Excursion Guide to the Geology of the Glasgow District. Geological Society of Glasgow, Glasgow. MERRILL, G.P. 1911. The Fossil Forests of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona Geological Survey. MOLLHAUSEN, B. 1858. Tagebiich einer Reise von Mississippi nach den Kusten der Sudsee. Herman Mendelssohn, Leipzig. (Translated in the same year as Diary of a journey from the Mississippi to the coasts of the Pacific with a United States Government expedition. London, 2 Volumes.) NEWBERRY, J.S. 1861. Geological report. In: IVES, J.C. et al. Report upon the Colorado River of the West explored in 1857 and 1858. US Congress, 1st session, Senate Executive Document & House Executive Document, 90,1-154. NORMAN, D.B. 1992. Fossil collecting and site conservation in Britain: are they reconcilable? Palaeontology, 35,247-256. PARKINSON, J. 1804. Organic Remains of a Former World, Volume 1. Sherwood, Moetg and Jones, London. RACKHAM, O. 1986. The History of the Countryside. J.M. Dent and Sons, George Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. SANTUCCI, V.L. & SANTUCCI, M. 1998. Fossil Cycad National Monument: a case of paleontological mismanagement. In: SANTUCCI, V.L. and MCCLELLAND, L. (eds) National Park Service Paleontological Research. Geological Resources Technical Report NPS/NRGRD/GRDTR-98/01 84-89. SCHLOTHEIM, E.F. 1820. Die Petrefactenkunde auf ihrem jetzig Standpunkte durch die Beschreibung seiner Sammlung versteinerter und fossiler Uberreste des Theis- und Pflanzenreichs der Vorwelt erlduter. Becker, Gotha. SCOTT, A.C. 1998. The legacy of Charles Lyell: advances in our knowledge of coal and coal-bearing strata. In: BLUNDELL, D.J. & SCOTT, A.C. (eds) Lyell: The Past is the Key to the Present. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 143,243-260.

PALAEOBOTANY AND GEOLOGICAL CONSERVATION SIMPSON, J.H. 1850. Journal of a military expedition to the Navaho Country, made in 1849. US 31st Congress, 1st session Senate Executive Document, 64, 56-138. (Reprinted and edited by Frank McNite in 1964 and published by University of Oklahoma Press.) SITGREAVES, L. 1854 [Diary], In: SITGREAVES, L. et al. Report of an Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers. US 32nd Congress, 2nd session, Senate Executive Document, Vol. 10, no. 59,4-29. SORBY, H.C. 1875. On the remains of fossil forest in the Coal-measures at Wadsley, near Sheffield. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 31, 458-500. SPAMER, E.E. 1989. A historic piece of petrified wood from the Triassic of Arizona. The Mosasaur, 4,149-152. STATUTES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 1970. An Act to Provide for the Protection of Historical Objects. Chapter 8. Assented to the 24th day of April, AD 1970. Queen's Printer, Halifax, Nova Scotia. STATUTES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 1980. An Act to Provide for the Preservation, Regulation and Study of Archaeological and Historical Remains and Palaeontological and Ecological Sites. Chapter 17. Assented to the 5th day of June, AD 1980. Queen's Printer, Halifax, Nova Scotia. STERNBERG, K. 1820-1838. Versuch einer geognostischen botanischen Dasstellung der Flora der Vorwelt, Volume I: Parts 1 and 2 (1820-1821), F. Fleischer, Leipzig; Parts 3 and 4 and Tentamen (1823-1825), E. Brenk's witte, Regensburg; Volume II: Parts 5 and 6 (1833), J. Spurny, Prague; Parts 7 and 8 (1838), G. Hasse und sohne, Prague. THOMAS, B.A. 1999. Do the hedgerow regulations conserve the biodiversity of British hedgerows? International Journal of Biosciences and the Law, 2, 67-90. WARD, L.F. 1900. Report on the Petrified Forests of Arizona. Washington, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC. WARD, L.F. 1901. The Petrified Forests of Arizona. Annual Report, Smithsonian Institute for 1899,289-307. WIELAND, G.R. 1916. American Fossil Cycads, Volume II. Taxonomy. Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication, 34, Volume li. WILLIAMSON, WC. 1887. A Monograph on the Morphology and Histology of Stigmaria ficoides. Palaeontographical Society (Monographs), 40,1-62. WILLIAMSON, WC. 1896. Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist. George Redwave, London. (Reprinted 1985, WATSON, J. & THOMAS, B.A. (eds), University of Manchester.) WITHAM, H.T.M. 1833. The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables Found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic Deposits of Great Britain. A&C Black, Edinburgh. WIMBLEDON, W.A., BENTON, M.J. et al. 1995. The development of a methodology for the selection of British geological sites for conservation: Part 1. Modern Geology, 20,159-202. WOLBERG, D. & REINHARD, P. 1997. Collecting the Natural World. Legal Requirements & Presumed Liability for Collecting Plants, Animals, Rocks, Minerals & Fossils. Geosciences Press, Tucson, Arizona. WOODHOUSE, S.W. 1854. Report on the natural history of the country passed over by the exploring expedition

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under the command of Brev. Capt. L. Sitgreaves, United States Topographical Engineers during the year 1851. In: SITGREAVES, L. et al. Report of An Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers. US 32nd Congress, 2nd session, Senate Executive Document, Vol. 10, no. 59, 31^0. YOUNG, J. 1868. Note on the section of strata in the Gilmorehill Quarry and Boulder Clay on the site of the new University buildings. Transactions of the Geological Society, Glasgow, III, 298. YOUNG, J. & GLEN, D.C. 1888. Notes on a section of Carboniferous Strata containing erect stems of fossil trees and beds of intrusive dolerite in the old Whinstone Quarry Victoria Park. Transactions of the Geological Society, Glasgow, VIII, 227-235.

Addendum Great Britain Recent excavations carried out at the Wadsley site in Sheffield revealed remains of many more stigmarian bases and fallen stems. After logging the remains, the site was covered over to preserve the remains from weathering.

Canada Using the Joggins locality in Nova Scotia as a case study, Falcon-Lang & Calder (2004) provided a framework for the assessment of candidate UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They stressed the outstanding value of Joggins' 'unrivalled record of fossil biota preserved in a high resolution palacoecological context.' The Joggins cliffs locality has now been placed on Canada's list of potential UNESCO sites. FALCON-LANG, H.J. & CALDER, J.H. 2004. UNESCO World Heritage and the Joggins Cliffs of Nova Scotia. Geology Today, 20,139-143.

USA The Petrified Forest National Park Expansion Act was first introduced to the House of Representatives on April 3rd 2003 (H.R. 1630). Congress finally passed the Bill in late November 2005 first having been passed by both the House of Representatives (108-713) and the Senate (784). President George Bush then signed the Bill, on December 3rd 2004. This Act more than doubled the size of the Petrified Forest National Park adding 52,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of fossil-rich Upper Triassic rocks thereby giving the park a total area of about 91,000 hectares (28,000). More information about the park and its fossils can be found at www.nps.gov/pefo/.

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Fig. Al. The cliffs at Joggins, Nova Scotia, Canada, showing the dipping Upper Carboniferous strata containing the fossil forests.

Palaeobotanical studies and collecting in the 19th century, with particular reference to the Ravenhead collection and Henry Hugh Higgins W. SIMKISS & AJ. BOWDEN Earth and Physical Sciences, National Museums Liverpool, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract: Palaeobotanical studies in the NW of England could be said to originate with Mr William Barton and Charles Leigh in the latter part of the 17th century. These individuals merely noted the existence of fossil plant remains in the Coal Measure deposits around Lancashire. However, it was not until the 19th century before any real studies were carried out on the flora found within the Lancashire Coalfield. The Ravenhead collection is primarily made up of an Upper Carboniferous Langsettian flora, fish and bivalves with some insect remains. The collector was Liverpool Museum volunteer Reverend Henry Hugh Higgins and the collection was made from a railway construction site in 1870. The site exposed two coal seams known as the Upper and Lower Ravenhead Coals. The collection was exhibited at the British Association meeting held in Liverpool in 1870 and at once created a great deal of interest. W. Carruthers remarked upon the fine preservation and the importance of having material where the separate components can now with certainty be shown to be part of the same plant. Higgins published the first paper on the Ravenhead collection in 1871. A year later, museum assistant Frederick Price Marrat produced an extensive paper for the Liverpool Geological Society in which he attempted a more detailed description of the Ravenhead flora. This paper described 58 true and seed fern specimens with variations, nine types that included five holotypes and two syntypes. However, Marrat admitted he found identification of plant remains by relying on external features extremely difficult and Williamson's methods of examining the microstructures of fossilized material were not yet in use. He published a further paper in 1872, listing the Sphenopsids found at the Ravenhead site. The bulk of the Ravenhead collection, including most of the types, survived the May 1941 blitz that virtually destroyed the museum. Unfortunately, all of the Ravenhead display material was lost in the fire.

The year 1700 saw publication of Charles Leigh's The Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire and the Peak in Derbyshire. In this work he gave a brief account of observations made by Mr William ^ Ae rocks m these p^s are only found/-o/^, WaH T^ ^ Barton, an apothecary, practising in Ormskirk, , „ Lancashire. Barton, during the 1680s-1690s, noted i fossil plant remains near Ormskirk andJ j Cfrom the surrounding region. He communicated his observations to Leigh believing them to be the exuviae of plants deposited as a result of the Deluge. Leigh further mentions 'plant remains' found in rocks near Latham (modern spelling, Lathom), Lancashire on land belonging to the Rt Hon. William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby, to whom Leigh was physician. He also collected what he called 'leaves of thorns' from Heesham (modern spelling, Heysham) and in the spoil heaps of various coal pits near Burnley in Lancashire. However, Leigh maintained that they were disports of nature, merely mineral concretions that had nothing to do with the Deluge. Indeed, he asserted that any plant remains laid down by a flood would be disjointed, folded over or would show other evidence of transport, which these remains did

not. Furthermore, Leigh was also disturbed at the restricted nature of the apparent flora noting:

In the rocks in thesee parts are only found Polypody W\, Wall Rue, Scolopendium or Leaves 01 Thorns; doubtless other

Plants as wf as these would have occurred to our observa-

tions had these been deposited by (Leigh r J Noah s Deluge. & &

1700,p/99.)

In 1723 Johannes Jacobus Scheuchzer published the 2nd edition of his Herbarium Diluvianum and figured a specimen of Osmunda (Neuropteris) from Northbierly and Flintshire. Scheuchzer's book is often regarded as one of the first true works on palaeobotany. Prior to the work of Higgins there are few records of plant fossils from Lancashire. It is also apparent that this was a time of flux in palaeobotanical understanding and taxonomy. The opening of the Ravenhead site in 1869, a result of preparatory work for the construction of the new Liverpool-St Helens railway, now part of the City Line, was to greatly increase our understanding of NW palaeofloras and, in particular, those from the Lancashire coal field.

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241,111-126.0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Fig. 1. The Reverend Henry Hugh Higgins (1814-1893) painted by R.E. Morrison c. 1880.

Henry Hugh Higgins and the Ravenhead collection The collector of the Ravenhead material was Reverend Henry Hugh Higgins (1814-1893) (Fig. 1). Born at Turvey Abbey, Bedfordshire in 1814, he gained a BA, Senior Optime in Mathematics from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University in 1836 (MA in 1842). Higgins became a curate, having several postings before taking a job as Inspector of Church Schools in Liverpool in 1843 and chaplain to the female orphan asylum. During the 1850s Higgins developed an interest in natural history. He proved to be an active and enthusiastic worker, eventually becoming President of the Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club in 1869. Higgins was also involved with the City Library, formerly Liverpool Free Library and Museum, and worked as a volunteer for Liverpool Museum. By 1859 Higgins had established himself

as an important part of educated society in 19th century Liverpool. He remained a dedicated worker for the museum and a number of other clubs and societies until his sudden death from a suspected heart attack in July 1893. A career change, following an unspecified period of ill health, enabled Higgins to be appointed Chaplain of Rainhill Asylum and he moved to Rainhill near St Helens, Merseyside in 1853. It was this change in location, and the construction of the new railway nearby in 1869, that provided the opportunity to make the Ravenhead collection. The site, which consisted of a series of strata from the Middle Coal Measures, was accessible from 1869 to 1870. In May 1870 Higgins paid his first visit to the site. However, it is not clear as to whether Higgins had been notified that the strata were fossiliferous or that he had sufficient knowledge of the local geology to enable him to search for fossils. A paper written in

PALAEOBOTANY AND HENRY HUGH HIGGINS

1866 demonstrated that he had some knowledge and interest in the local geology before the excavation took place (Higgins 1866). Higgins also mentioned previously unsuccessful attempts to find Carboniferous plant fossils at Huyton Quarry and the abundance of fossils found in the Wigan Area. The Ravenhead cutting site, near the village of Thatto Heath, was only 2.3 km from Higgins' home and had two main coal seams, which were locally worked for fuel, known as the Upper and Lower Ravenhead Coals (in the vicinity of the Ravenhead Main Delf and Ravenhead Higher coal seams). These contained a Langsettian flora (Cleal 1981). Initially, Higgins enlisted his family to assist with removal of fossil material from the site. He also developed his skills in finding good-quality fossil plant and animal remains as his familiarity with the temporary exposure increased. Although Higgins made over 100 visits to the site he realized that with so many other home, work and society commitments it was impossible to devote all his time to it. This, together with his increasing concern at the amount of material being removed, led him to start training and employing the railway workers to find and collect new specimens. He used a simple preferential reward system to ensure that the navvies provided him with a selection of high-quality specimens. Higgins was a perceptive individual who had previous experience of working with labourers and colliers in Wolverhampton (he organized church services at 5 o'clock in the morning so that they could attend them more easily). By use of a reward system Higgins was able to maintain a competitive spirit and good humour amongst the 'volunteer' workforce. Higgins's educational instincts enabled him to appreciate and develop a lay person's interest in science, and he actively enjoyed sharing his knowledge and expertise with people at all levels of society without holding any unrealistic expectations as to any probable results. Indeed, he regarded the workers' responses to his requests as a kind of social experiment. The railway workers concentrated on fine specimens of the common fossils whilst Higgins searched for more obscure material. Higgins also enlisted the assistance of three or four boys from the Ravenhead National Schools who became zealous collectors, particularly of the ironstone nodules. These they split with great dexterity and furnished Higgins with many fine specimens (Higgins 1886). The major problem with this method of 'rescue collecting' was that there was little precise information as to the exact locality for each specimen. This type of information would only be recorded if detailed field notes had been made by the collector. Such notes could have been of great value to future palaeobotanists. As it is, the lack of detailed specimen locations has hampered research into the stratigraphy of the area.

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The Ravenhead site: stratigraphy and problems The 'rescue collection' of the Ravenhead material has led to some problems in determination of the accurate stratigraphic position of the specimens. In his 1872 paper Higgins notes that some of the beds of rock contained more fossils than others and that the material was collected near the bridge at the south end of the cutting. He states that both the Upper and Lower Ravenhead Coals were exposed, as well as ironstone nodules containing leaf remains. Higgins also notes the collection of fern remains from the shales above and below the coal seams. Fifty yards north of this point sandstone beds were encountered that contained arborescent forms rather than ferns including Catamites, Halonia, Lepidodendron and Pycnophyllum. The third locality mentioned was close to the Pigeon-house coals, again in sandstone but including similar fern material to that found in the ironstone nodules of the first locality. Higgins also noted that immediately below the Pigeon-house coal was a bivalve bed and, below this, a weathered shale yielding specimens of Volkmannia, Sphenophylum and Catamites. Below the shale Higgins identified another sandstone band that contained fern remains, including the fruit Trigonocarpus that is thought to be from seed ferns. Below the main coal seams Higgins mentioned that there were the remains of upright stems found in the grey shales. These were chiefly the remains of Catamites, Halonia, Lepidodendron and Pycnophyllum, with a few fern species as well. It was suggested that some of the remains recovered were in situ with damaged trunks and roots attached. Kidston (1889) has attempted to provide a stratigraphy for the Ravenhead collection and provides a detailed stratigraphic column with measurements for the thicknesses of each bed for the Prescot, St Helens and Wigan areas. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the accuracy of Kidston's attribution to localities and he suggests that all of the Ravenhead material was collected from the shales above the Higher Ravenhead Coal, between the two coal seams or below the Ravenhead Main Coal. Cleal (1981) provided a stratigraphy for the region putting the age of the Ravenhead material in the Lower Coal Measures. Cleal goes on to suggest that all of the Ravenhead material was collected between the Ravenhead Higher Coal and the Ravenhead Main Coal. However, a cursory examination of the matrix surrounding the specimens suggests that this is not the case, as there appears to be a variety of sediment types. If they were, as suggested by Cleal (1981), from this narrow range then all of the specimens would have been preserved in shale or ironstone nodules. Unfortunately, these questions will remain unresolved as the site was levelled and

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landscaped shortly after completing the railway cutting. A schematic of the stratigraphy is included as Figure 2.

Post-collection history of the Ravenhead material Higgins seems to have used two criteria for specimen selection. First, he obtained large, well-preserved specimens from the railway workers, which were probably intended for display material in the galleries of the Liverpool Free Public Museum. For the more obscure material, Higgins relied on his botanical knowledge to select specimens. Having an interest in botany proved an advantage in some respects because he chose specimens that showed leaves, stems, roots and young shoot foliage attached, if they were available. He recognized the importance of finding plant remains that were representative of the full range of vegetative structures. It must be remembered, however, that Higgins was not a trained palaeobotanist and that he was unable to identify his collected material satisfactorily. His attempts to name the plant fossils were further hampered by the general lack of readily available publications that could assist with identification. Possessing some botanical knowledge, however, also proved disadvantageous as it led to Higgins making decisions based on false criteria. For example, Higgins rejected many hundreds of specimens collected from the Ravenhead site because the leaves did not show the sori structures found on modern true ferns: Besides the specimens collected, hundreds of fern fragments were anxiously scrutinised for traces of fructification, but without success. The rarity of fossil ferns exhibiting sori is reasonably enough accounted for by the suggestion that the under side of the leaf, being rough, would cling more closely to the matrix than the smooth upper side. The cleavage therefore of an ironstone or a piece of shale would always shew the upper side of the leaf and its impression. (Higgins 1871, p. 16.) At the time he would have known of Brongniart's work linking fossil and modern forms (Brongniart 1828-1837, 1837-1838). Unfortunately, workers at that time failed to realize that the fossilized leaves were likely to be those of seed ferns, which do not possess sori structures. As a result, Higgins was searching for true fern structures on fossilized seed ferns. In addition to this, John Lindley carried out an important experiment in plant taphonomy between 1833 and 1835 on the capability of different plant genera to resist decomposition in an aqueous environment (Lindley & Hutton 1837, pp. 4-12). Lindley proved that fruiting structures on modern non-flowering plants break down more rapidly than leaves and

stems in aquatic environments. The rapidity with which this occurs means that, even on true ferns, it is unlikely that sori structures would be preserved before fossilization. We must therefore assume that Higgins had not read this information, even though it appears he had access to the publication in which it occurred. It is therefore apparent that he discarded specimens unnecessarily in a fruitless search and there is nothing to suggest that he requested a second opinion when selecting suitable material for the Liverpool Free Public Museum's collection. Once collected, selected and sorted, the Ravenhead collection then became the centre of attention when it was exhibited at the British Association Meeting held at Liverpool in 1870. The material was obviously impressive, as William Carruthers mentioned that: The great value of this collection, made by the Rev H. Higgins, depended as much upon the comparatively limited number of species met with, as the fine condition in which they occurred. It was possible to arrive at considerable (in some cases absolute) certainty as to the different parts of the same species. (Carruthers 1871, pp. 71-72; William Carruthers was the Keeper of Botany at the British Museum (Natural History) from 1871 to 1895.) During the early 1870s an accurate taxonomic classification of fossil plants had not been fully established, and Carruthers obviously realized the importance of finding specimens where the separate parts (often with different names) were shown to be components of the same plant. Of particular interest is the linking of Calamites with its root structure named Pinnularia. In the Ravenhead collection they were found together as stem and roots. Another example includes that of Volkmannia binneyi, a cone structure that is found together with its leaves. Carruthers also observed that the Ravenhead collection had the cones, stems and leaves of sphenopsids together, that the structure of some cones could be observed and that the foliage actually showed different stages of growth in some cases. During this period, many fossils had been named, classified and described separately, and collections such as the Ravenhead became significant in showing the associations between parts of the Coal Measure plants and the possibility that foliage which appeared different may actually have been from the same plant. Such a collection of material would have been particularly important at that time when so much new work in sorting out fossil plant taxonomy was being undertaken. On 9 December 1870 the Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club held a meeting in which the guest speaker was William Crawford Williamson of Owen's College, Manchester. (Professor William Crawford Williamson, FRS, FGS (1816-1895) was a palaeobotanist who was employed as Professor of Natural History at Owens College, Manchester and worked

Figure 2

STRATIGRAPHY DIAGRAMS FOR THE RAVENBOEAD LOCALITY

Fig. 2. Schematic stratigraphy of the Ravenhead site as derived from Higgins (1871), Kisdston (1889) and Cleal (1981). Detailed observations concerning the stratigraphy were not made during the 'rescue collecting' from the Ravenhead site. This makes interpretation of the actual horizons from which specimens were obtained almost impossible as the exact location of the site is now unknown due to landscaping activities from 1875 onwards.

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on the taxonomy of Upper Carboniferous and Jurassic plants.) Williamson described the characteristics of Lepidodendra and how they had been classed as clubmosses. He went on to criticize Brongniart for assuming a Lepidodendron branch could be classed as a cryptogam whereas Sigillaria, which was woodier, was a gymnosperm. Williamson argued that they were from the same plant and that the structures could be explained by the fact that it took a long time for a Lepidodendron to develop a woody thickening to its stem. Higgins mentioned that Williamson was still unclear about the status of Stigmaria and Sigillaria, but, in fact, Williamson had completed the first part of a memoir a month before the meeting in which his findings were still being disputed (noted on p. 158 of his autobiography Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist', Williamson 1896). In that paper he stated that Stigmaria and Sigillaria were both separate parts of lycopods. The memoir was refused publication; possibly because it disputed the opinions of many established palaeobotanists, although that was not the excuse given. The published grounds for refusal was that there would be an obligation placed upon the Royal Society to publish other parts of the memoir. Eventually the memoir did appear in print and the scientific world began to accept his findings. During the 1880s Williamson's ideas on Carboniferous plant classification began to become accepted in Europe and by 1890, except for those pupils of Brongniart, most palaeobotanists had changed their ideas on fossil plant classification. Williamson also advised on the classification of Catamites, which Higgins subsequently adopted in the presidential address he gave in January 1871.

Frederick Price Marrat and the first Ravenhead papers The first paper on the Ravenhead collection appeared in 1871 as a printed version of a presidential address to the Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club. Higgins described the material and noted that the plants were typical of a depositional environment found at low latitudes. His inference was based on a comparison with modern-day environments and noting the sedimentological relationships of the deposits. Higgins figured nine specimens from the collection in his paper (Higgins 1871). In 1872 museum assistant Frederick Price Marrat wrote a paper in which he identified and described 58 true and seed ferns, this included nine new types of which five were holotypes, and two syntypes (Marrat 1872). Marrat's 1872 paper was preceded by a short introductory paper from Higgins in which he recorded his debt of gratitude for Marrat's careful work in identifying the Ravenhead fern species (Higgins 1872).

Marrat (1820-1904) (Fig. 3) was American born and was originally employed by the 13th Earl of Derby to work on his collection of fossils at Knowsley in 1841. (Edward Smith Stanley (1775-1851), 13th Earl of Derby was a noted natural historian whose collections formed the core of the natural sciences collections of Liverpool Museum on his death in 1851.) In 1843 Marrat taught science and by 1845 he was dealing in natural history objects (McMillan 1985). He assisted in the arrangement of geological collections at the Liverpool Royal Institution and was later employed as a museum worker in 1862. Marrat's expertise lay with mollusca rather than palaeobotany, and he became Liverpool Museum's conchologist in 1872. Marrat was noted as having some botanical expertise despite a lack of formal training. He was an acknowledged expert in the Cryptogamia of the Liverpool district, and conducted pioneering work on the Musci, Hepaticae, Lichens and Algae from 1849 to 1864 (Lee 1920). Marrat admitted that fossil plant identification was a difficult task. He struggled with the confusion of taxonomic ideas and, to a certain extent, his papers reflected some of this uncertainty. Brongniart's idea that all fossil material could be classified within the same categories as modern plants was in favour at the time, but mistakes and confusion arose because fossilized remains were not found as complete specimens and might therefore be classified as separate species or even genera. For example, Brongniart assigned two different parts of a lycopod to both cryptogams and gymnosperms because he relied on the characteristics of modern plants for identification. As early as 1831 Lindley & Hutton had criticized botanical classification saying: 'If the species that are found in a fossil state are not capable of being reduced to the genera of modern Botanists, this is of little importance when we consider how artificial those genera are' (Lindley & Hutton 1831, vol. 1, p. 111). So when Marrat tried to identify the fern-like fossil leaves of the Ravenhead collection, he had little basis on which to form his ideas and the publications to which he had access were of limited value. For example, each author seemed to have their own definition of a genus so, for Sphenopteris alone, Marrat was faced with seven different definitions, with at least two for Pecopteris. Although it was broadly agreed by most authors as to what defined Nephropteris, Brongniart used the name Cyclopteris for this genus. Marrat was therefore faced not only with the problems of identifying the Ravenhead specimens, but was also required to choose which author's definition he was going to use for his identification. The standards involved in taxonomic description were not always very precise and relied purely on the characteristics of external features. William Crawford Williamson's methods of exam-

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Fig. 3. (a) and (b) Frederick Price Marrat (1820-1904) as a younger man around the time of collecting the Ravenhead material (b). In his senior years c. 1900 (a). ining the microstructures were only just being developed. These factors, together with the incompleteness of fossil remains, meant that the chances of accurate identification were remote. Nevertheless, Marrat described the collections with only limited methods and access to publications. He observed that in the case of Sphenopteris trifoliata (Artis), the leaves of the Ravenhead specimen were smaller and more rounded than the one figured in publications. He was sure that it was from the same plant and that the slight morphological differences were entirely due to the fact that it came from near the top of the plant. Guided by Brongniart's illustrations, Marrat found that two of the Ravenhead specimens resembled those illustrated only very superficially, so he decided to give them the new name Sphenopteris coriacea (Marrat 1872). He did, however, explain that if he was using Artis' definition to identify this material it would not stand as a new species and, hence, type specimen (Marrat 1872, pp. 98-99). Marrat described Sphenopteris obliqua (Marrat 1872) according to the angle of the leaf attachment to its rachis. Marrat noted that it was similar to a previous find but on a smaller scale. He also described

Sphenopteris plumula (Marrat 1872), but this lost its type status and was re-identifed as Sphyropteris obliqua (Marrat 1872) by Robert Kidston in 1889 (Kidston 1889, p. 402). Sphenopteris pulchra (Marrat 1872) was designated a holotype until Kidston identified it as Sphenopteris mixta (Schimper) (Kidston 1889, p. 405). However, Cleal (1981) referred to this specimen under its original name. See Figure 4. Marrat named one of the specimens after Mr Footner, the engineer on the railway at the Ravenhead cutting, who allowed full site access and collection of the fossil material. Sphenopteris footneri (Marrat 1872) is now known as Renaultia footneri (Marrat), Brousmiche 1983. This was noted as different from Sphenopteris quereifolia (Goeppert) by Marrat. Sphenopteris multifida (Marrat 1872) was described as being in the form of a miniature stag's horn. The specimen in today's collections is the counterpart of the holotype, the latter having been destroyed in 1941. It has, however, been reassessed and is now identified as Sphenopteris sp., its specific status being very uncertain. Marrat appeared to use the name Nephropteris for what many contemporary authors would have termed

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Fig. 4. Ravenhead type specimens mentioned in the paper, (a) Sphenopteris coriacea Marrat. Accession No. Higgins AC. (b) Ephyropteris onliqua (Marrat). Accession No. Higgins AT. (c) Sphenopteris plumula Marrat. Accession No. Higgins AL. (d) Shenopteris pulchra Marrat. Accession No. Higgins AM. (e) Sphenopteris footneri Marrat. Accession No. Higgins AG. (f) Sphenopteris multifida Marrat Accession No. Higgins AK. (g) Neuropteris dentata Lesquereux Accession No. Higgins L.

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Cyclopteris. To assist in identification Marrat used Lesquereux's publications on the Pennsylvanian floras, noting that Lesquereux had found the rounded leaves supposed to be Cyclopteris on the same stem as the lanceolate leaves typical of Neuropteris. This suggested that the same fossil had leaves in both a lanceolate and rounded form and that this was known to some nineteenth century palaeobotanists. (Leo Lesquereux (1806-1889) was arguably America's first palaeobotanist, as well as a leading bryologist. Although he failed to gain any permanent scientific position in America he was noted for his work on Coal Measures flora, publishing extensively for State Geological Surveys. Lesquereux was also profoundly deaf as a result of illness in early adulthood and stands as a shining example of overcoming severe disability to make a lasting contribution in science.) Marrat stated that he was aware of different leaf forms from the same plant and yet he named a sharp-toothed leaf form Nephropteris denticulata (Marrat 1872). He later doubted this identification because there was only a single leaf. The specimen is currently named Cyclopteris sp. However, Marrat was not always consistent over his doubtful identifications. He had already stated that he knew that fossil plant material could have a variety of leaf forms for the same plant, yet was happy to assign new names to single leaf specimens for Nephropteris triangularis (Marrat 1872) and Nephropteris obcordata (Marrat 1872). There is little in the way of description for these specimens and they are not type specimens today. See Figure 5. Marrat's species Odontpteris neuropteroides (Marrat 1872) was characterized by the striated nervation, which continues into the rachis. This species has since been re-identified as Odontopteris reichiana (Gutbieri) with Marrat's name listed as a synonym in a revision by Robert Kidston in 1889 (Kidston 1889, p. 409). A second specimen was also figured, but has never been found and is thought to have been destroyed in the fire in 1941. However, this is a late Westphalian D (Bolsovian) species from the upland basins of Saar-Lorraine, Zwickau and Central Bohemia, and is clearly out of stratigraphic sequence with the Ravenhead flora. Cleal (pers. comm.) believes that Kidston's revision is in error and that the specimen belongs to Neuropteris obliqua, whose pinnules often become broadly attached to the rachis. Although most of Marrat's work on the Ravenhead collection concerned the identification of true and seed fern specimens, he also looked at the sphenopsids. Marrat found five genera, 13 species and six varieties of these in the collection. In the ensuing paper he also included the previously listed type specimen Calamocladus (Calamites) tennuis (Marrat 1871) (noted in Higgins 1871). Marrat's list of Sphenopsids was published in 1873 (Marrat

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1873) with a continuation published in 1874 (Marrat 1874). Marrat's 1872 paper on the Ravenhead collection continued to receive attention, but not always in a positive light, as in 1873 William Carruthers wrote his 'Review of fossil botany' where he commented: The figures and descriptions are scarcely sufficient for independent investigators to determine the characters which distinguish them from already described species' (Carruthers 1873, p. 463). Carruthers pointed out that the standard of description and illustrations was not high enough for an accurate description of the new species. In particular, Chard's drawings came in for criticism as lacking the fine detail required for detailed botanical study (John Chard was the museum's illustrator and draughtsman who prepared plates for publication). Figures 6-8 of this paper show a selection of Chard's drawings, compared with the actual specimens, for which Carruthers criticized him for showing a lack of detail in his illustrations of the Ravenhead flora. Plant identifications and captions are those used in Marrat (1872). Museum specimen identifications are those currently residing on labels. Despite the shortcomings of Marrat's descriptions, the paper did serve to notify the scientific world of the collection. It must be remembered that neither Higgins nor Marrat had any specialist knowledge of palaeobotany and that, in this respect, they were amateur players in a field that contained individuals who held strong opinions. Furthermore, the range of suitable publications to assist with identification was very limited during the 19th century. This, compounded with the uncertain state of palaebotanical taxonomy, meant that both workers had a very difficult task to make full scientific sense of the Ravenhead collection. It is, perhaps, a credit to Marrat that some of the specimens he described as types still retain their status today, especially as his specialist field of study was conchology. The work on the Ravenhead collection was Higgins' and Marrat's only real foray into the world of palaeobotany. Both workers remained active in botany and other branches of the natural sciences until their respective deaths. Higgins, in particular, specialized in cryptogams discovering Weisia verticillata and Orthotrichum diaphanum. The study of fungi also caught his serious attention and he left detailed records of the Gasteromycetes and Hymenomycetes (Lee 1922). Higgins also entered into the world of botanical conservation pleading for special conservation status for Bidston Hill in view of its unique flora. His passionate plea in 1883 to free Bidston Hill, on the Wirral, from the hands of developers has a very modern tone, listing the plant species that would be threatened if development were allowed to continue (Higgins 1883). It is thanks to Higgins that this unique site has been preserved

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Fig.5. Ravenhead type specimens mentioned in the paper, (a) Nephropteris triangularis Marrat. Accession No. Higgins M. (b) Neuropteris obcordata Marrat. Accession No. Higgins T. (c) Odontopteris neuropteroides Marrat. Accession No. Higgins X. (d) Catamites tennuis Marrat. Accession No. Higgins G. (e) Sphenoteris marratii Kidston. Accession No. Higgins AJ. (f) Sphenopteris footneri Marrat. Accession No. Higgins AF.

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Fig, 6. (a) Alethopteris decurrens, Dawson. (b) Alethopteris sp. Accession No. Higgins PR. (c) Rootstock of a fern, with paleae or chaffy scales. (d)Aphlebia crispum (presl). Accession No. Higgins H. Illustration by J. Chard.

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Fig. 7, (a) Sphenopteris (Aneimioides) pulchra, Marrat. (ai) Magnified pinnules of the same, showing striation and nervation, (b) Sphenopteris pulehra, Marrat. Accession No. Higgins AM. (c) Sphenopteris pulchra, Marrat, close up to reveal pinnule detail, (d) Callipteris conferta, Sternb. (?). (di) A magnified leaf of the same plant, showing the nervation, (e) Neuropteris sp. (cf. ovata Hoffman) Accession No. Higgins H. Illustration by J. Chard.

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Fig. 8. (a) Neuropteris heterophylla, Brongniart., var. (?). (ai) A magnified pinnule, showing nervation, (b) Neurodontopteris obliqua (Brongniart.). Accession No. Higgins R. (c) Neurodontopteris obliqua (Brongniart), detail showing leaf pinnules. Accession No. Higgins R. Illustration by J. Chard.

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Fig, L Group of Museum Workers about 1890 J. Chard F. P. Marrat Unidentified P. Entwistle K H, Higgiits T. J« Moore Fig. 9. Group of Liverpool Museum Workers about 1880. Chard, Higgins, Marrat and Moore were instrumental in bringing the Ravenhead material to the notice of the academic community, as well as to a much wider public audience. today. Marrat similarly held a deep and lasting interest in the Cryptogamia becoming a local authority on the Musci, Hepaticae, lichens and algae (Lee 1920). After publication of the Ravenhead papers other museum duties prevented Marrat from continuing his botanical studies. Instead he concentrated on conchology, in particular specializing in the Oliviidae and Nassariidae.

Robert Kidston's revision of the Ravenhead collection It was Marrat's 1872 paper that came to the attention of the Scottish palaeobotanist and former banker, Robert Kidston. (Robert Kidston (1852-1924) was a Scottish palaeobotanist who was especially noted for his work on the Rhynie Chert floras in the 1920s. After studying botany at Edinburgh University he was made an honorary palaeobotanist of that

Institution in 1880.) In March 1886 Kidston visited Liverpool and viewed the Ravenhead collection. He returned again in September of the following year, and mentioned that Marrat and the curator of Liverpool Museum, Thomas J. Moore, gave him much assistance (Fig. 9). Kidston made a request for 68 of the specimens to be borrowed for examination. He also asked to make nine thin sections of two specimens in order to identify the microstructures. These thin sections were thought to have been lost in the fire of 1941. However, during a recent move of the collections, seven of them were subsequently rediscovered in 1999. Kidston returned 58 of the specimens in 1888 and the remaining 10 were returned in the following year. Kidston's observations were published in 1889. Kidston identified three additional species of Catamites - Calamites undulatus (Sternberg), Catamites cistii (Brongniart) and Calamocladus lycopodioides (Zeiller) - to those of Marrat, plus two

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new Sphenopterids and two others - Sphenopteris sauveurii (Crepin) and Sphenopteris sternbergii (Brongniart) - amongst the true ferns. Marrat's identification of Sphenopteris multifida (Lindley and Hutton) was altered by Kidston who united it with another species - Urnatopteris tenella (Brongniart). He also renamed one of the specimens identified by Marrat - Sphenopteris trifoliolata, Marrat (not Artis) - as Sphenopteris marratii saying that it was close to both Sphenopteris obtusiloba and Sphenopteris (Diplothemema) avoldensis (Stur), although he states that Stur did not give drawings with enlarged details of the leaf structure, which made it impossible for a good comparison to be made. Unable to make up his mind, Kidston named it separately after Marrat, because he was the first to publish a list of the Ravenhead material (Kidston 1889). Further revisions made to Marrat's list by Kidston include renaming Sphenopteris pulchra to Sphenopteris mixta (Schimper) and requesting that Sphenopteris footneri be renamed to Sphenopteris (Renaultia) gracilis (Brongniart) because its structure appeared similar to similar species found at Clay Cross in Derbyshire (Kidston 1889, pp. 406-407). Of the seed ferns, Kidston listed an additional species to those of Marrat, namely Mariopteris muricata (Schlotheim) and also included sections on the other groups of lycopods and cordaites, neither of which had been examined before. Kidston therefore attempted to revise the identifications in light of changes in plant taxonomy, which were still being made. On 16 July 1888 Kidston's paper on the Ravenhead collection was read at the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Kidston 1889). By this time Kidston was more certain as to the identification of Sphenopteris marratii and that it could be described as a new species, which was named after Marrat. He also mentioned that there were some other specimens, that appeared to be new species, but that they were too fragmented to be named as such. During the 1880s the use of microstructures became an established method of identifying Carboniferous plants. In 1890 Williamson's ideas on classification had been accepted in most of Europe, as noted in Williamson (1896, p. 158). A list of species from the Ravenhead site was published in 1891 by G.H. Morton who produced this as part of a much wider study of the geology in the Liverpool area (Morton 1891, pp. 51-52). (George Highfield Morton, FGS (1826-1900) was a Liverpool painter and decorator who devoted his life to the study of geology. He was President of the Liverpool Geological Society and produced a number of publications on local geology. His collection is held at Liverpool Museum.) The plants in the Ravenhead

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collection had no other revision in the 19th century, but labels have been found with the name W. Hemmingway written on them suggesting that the collection may have been viewed by him. W.W. Hemmingway was an amateur palaeobotanist who may have originated in Yorkshire but certainly lived in Derby. He practised as a geological thin section maker (A. Howell pers. comm.). There is no date for this but it was possible that he attended a British Association meeting in the local area.

Conclusion Since the 19th century the collection has been reviewed in other publications and part of it has survived the 1941 blitz. However, fairly recent examination of the material has revealed that there are specimens from some other collections with original labels still adhering to them - for example specimen HIGGINS YN Artisia transversa, which carries an original label with the collection date April 1858, over a decade before the Ravenhead site was excavated. A few of these specimens were collected in the 1850s, and have been included with the Ravenhead fossils as the locality given is Thatto Heath. However, this is not actually from the Ravenhead cutting site. This may now cast some doubt upon certain elements of the flora, particularly highlighting CJ. deal's concern about the occurrence of Neuropteris scheuchzeri Hoffman, which was formerly only known from Duckmantian - Upper Cantabrian strata in Europe. If this specimen can be confirmed as coming from the Ravenhead Langsettian flora it would possibly be a first appearance for this species in the UK. Cleal has highlighted two points to be considered when discussing the Ravenhead collection. First, the Ravenhead flora remains the only well-documented Late Carboniferous compression flora from the Lancashire Coalfield. Despite all of the mining activity in the area nobody followed up Higgins' initiative and expanded on the collection of plant fossils (Cleal pers. comm.). Secondly, the Ravenhead collection has remained important for palaeobotany and continues to be studied. Kidston (1892) refers to some of the specimens, whilst in recent years Amerom (1990) revised Sphyropteris and figured the holotype from Higgins' collection. Brousmiche (1983) also made references to Renaultia footneri (Cleal pers. comm.). Perhaps the last word should be left to Higgins, who revisited the Ravenhead site after he had made the collection. Walking across the hill through which the cutting has been driven, near to St Helen's, where the trees are being poisoned every one, and even the grass looks miserable, I have often wished that I could have seen the spot as it was when

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John Harrison, the Coal-miner, botanised there so successfully; but I little thought of the rich and varied Flora lying only a few yards under my feet. Still it must be admitted that in one group alone, the vegetation of the coal-measures may have been superior to the woodland plants familiar to us now. We have not in the living British Ferns the variety, and perhaps not the beauty, that distinguished those of the coal period. (Higgins 1871, p. 17.) This work formed part of an unpublished MSc dissertation on the Ravenhead collection by W. Simkiss, supervised by A.J. Bowden. The resulting paper arose from a suggestion by Dr J.R. Edmondson that we present a paper on Higgins and Marrat at the Linnean Society/History of Geology Group joint meeting held at the Linnean Society on 24 October 2001. The authors thank Drs J.R. Edmondson and G.R. Tresise for critically reading the initial draft of the manuscript. To the external reviewers A. Howell and Dr C.J. deal we extend our thanks and appreciation for their useful comments and insight.

References AMEROM, H.W.J., VAN. 1990. Sphyropteris obliqua (Marrat) Kidston. A fossil fern fructification from the waste dump of the former Laura & Vereeniging mine at Eygelshoven. Mededelingen Rijks Geologische Dienst, Nieuwe Serie, 44, 11—21. BRONGNIART, A. 1828-1837. Histoire des Vegetaux fossiles, Volume 1: Parts 1 and 2 (1828); Part 3 (1829); Part 4 (1830); Parts 5 and 6 (1831); Part 7 (1833); Parts 8 and 9 (1834); Part 10 (1836); Parts 10 and 11 (1837). G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. BRONGNIART, A. 1837-1838. Histoire des vegetaux fossiles, Volume 2: Part 13 (1837); Parts 14 and 15 (1838). G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, Paris. BROUSMICHE, C. 1983. Lesfougeres sphenopteridiennes du basin houiller Sarro-Lorrain. Publication Societe Geologique du Nord, 10. CARRUTHERS, W. 1871. Remarks on the fossils from the railway section at Huyton. Report of the 4th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Liverpool (1870), 4, 71-72. CARRUTHERS, W. 1873. Review of the contributions to fossil botany published in Britain in 1872. Geological Magazine, 10,461^465. CLEAL, C.J. 1981. The Ravenhead collection of fossil plants. Amateur Geologist, 9, Part 2, 12-23. HIGGINS, H.H. 1866. Notes on the local, natural and geological history of Rainhill. Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 21, 64-82. HIGGINS, H.H. 1871. President's Address. Proceedings of

the Liverpool Naturalists'Field Club for 1870-1871, 9-19. HIGGINS, H.H. 1872. On some fossil ferns in the Ravenhead collection, Free Public Museum, Liverpool. Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society 13th Session (1871-1872), 2,94-96. HIGGINS, H.H. 1883. A plea for Bidston Hill First meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society session for 1883-1884. Liverpool Mercury, 12 October 1883. HIGGINS, H.H. 1886. Fossil Insects from the Coal Measures, Ravenhead, St Helens, 1870. 13th Ordinary Meeting, Liverpool Royal Institution Minutes 1886. KIDSTON, R. 1889. On the fossil plants in the Ravenhead collection in the Free Library and Museum, Liverpool. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 35, 391-417. KIDSTON, R. 1892. Notes on some fossil plants from the Lancashire Coal Measures. Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society, 21,401^28. LEE, A. 1920. Frederick Price Marrat & Thomas Palgrave. Lancashire and Cheshire Naturalist, 13, 47-56, 76-82,127-129. LEE, A. 1922. The Rev. Henry Hugh Higgins, a Liverpool Naturalist. Lancashire and Cheshire Naturalist, 14, 159-165. LEIGH, C. 1700. The Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire and the Peak in Derbyshire. Printed for the authors, Oxford. LINDLEY, J. & HUTTON, W. 1831-1837. The Fossil Flora of Great Britain; or, Figures and Descriptions of the Vegetable Remains Found in a Fossil State, Volume 1 (1833); Volume 2 (1835); Volume 3 (1837). John Ridgeway, London. MARRAT, FP. 1872. On the fossil ferns in the Ravenhead Collection. Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society 13th Session (1871-1872), 2, 97-134. MARRAT, P.P. 1873. Calamites and their alliances. Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society 14th Session (1872-1873), 2, 34-36. MARRAT, P.P. 1874. Calamites and their alliances. A continuation of a paper on the Fossil Plants, in the Liverpool Free Public Miseum, collected by the Revd. H.H. Higgins, and known as the Ravenhead Collection. Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society 15th Sesssion (1873-1874), 2, 81-84. MCMILLAN, N.F. 1985. Frederick Price Marrat, Conchologist. Liverpool Museum Occasional Papers. MORTON, G.H. 1891. The Geology of the Country Around Liverpool. George Philip & Son, London & Liverpool. SCHEUCHZER, J.J. 1723. Herbarium Diluvianum, 2nd edn. Petri Vander Aa, Ley den. WILLIAMSON, W.C. 1896. Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist. George Redway, London.

The palaeobotanical work of Marie Stopes W.G. CHALONER Geology Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW209 OEX, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract: Marie Stopes was unquestionably one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century. The long-term significance of her work in pioneering the defence of women's rights, and in urging the general acceptance of contraception, far exceeds that of her contributions to palaeobotany. Nonetheless, between 1903 and 1935 she published a series of palaeobotanical papers that placed her among the leading half-dozen British palaeobotanists of her time. Her book Ancient Plants (1910; Blackie, London) was a successful pioneering attempt to popularize the subject for a non-botanical audience. Her contributions on the earliest angiosperms, on the formation of coalballs, and, above all, on the nature and terminology of coal macerals have had a lasting impact on palaeobotanical thought.

Marie Stopes has been aptly described as one of the 20th century's most remarkable women (Hall 1977). She made a name for herself in three very different fields: first, as a palaeobotanist and coal geologist; secondly (and in chronological order) as a pioneer in proclaiming and defending women's rights and expectations within marriage, and in making contraception available and acceptable to the public; and, finally, as a prolific poet and playwright, an activity that ran synchronously with the other two. But there is no question that her fame and, for some of her contemporaries, her notoriety came from her writing on sexual technique and advocating the use of contraception. It was in this field that she truly achieved worldwide fame. The South African palaeobotanist Rayner (1991) wrote that 'Marie Stopes changed the face of British (and to some extent, Western) society almost beyond recognition . . . she . . . almost single-handedly led women out of the sexual repression of the Victorian Age into an enlightened age of sexual awareness'. Hall reported that when a number of American academics were asked in 1935 to list the 25 most influential books of the previous 50 years, Married Love (Marie Stopes's best selling work; Stopes 19180) scored only a little behind Marx's Das Kapital, and ahead of Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity and Hitler's Mein Kampf. Four major biographies of Marie Stopes have been published (Maude 1924; Briant 1962; Hall 1977; Rose 1992), but inevitably they concentrate on aspects of her life other than her palaeobotany. The latter two, particularly, give full accounts of her family background and childhood, and for this reason I brush past these in this brief account of her palaeobotanical work. Those two biographies also list some of the many other writings and analyses of particular aspects of her work outside palaeobotany. Eaton & Warnick (1977) give a list of her main published works. An account of the relevance of her

palaeobotanical work in the history of American palaeobotany is given in Chaloner (1995), and some of this is drawn on here. I was fortunate to have met Marie Stopes in the 1950s, and as this has coloured my perception of her and her work, I give an abbreviated account of what I wrote about that occasion (Chaloner 1995) here. I first met Marie Stopes at the Geological Society in London in 1952, when she attended a Geologists' Association meeting for the presentation of the Henry Stopes Lecture, named for her father. I was at that time in the second year of my PhD research on Carboniferous plants. I will never forget the scene as she came into the Geological Society library where we were having tea prior to the meeting. She was dressed strikingly, with showy jewellery and a large hat, rather as for a Buckingham Palace garden party than a scientific meeting. Heads turned, and there were murmurs of recognition. Bill Croft, palaeobotanist at the Natural History Museum, urged that I should not miss this opportunity of meeting her, and introduced me. On learning that I had embarked on palaeobotanical research, she announced in a voice thoroughly audible to all above the tea-time chat: Ah, dear boy, that is wonderful! Of course, palaeobotany was my first love!'. That really turned all the heads, and I was consumed with embarrassment and sought cover behind Bill Croft. But in later times I was very proud to have encountered her, and we corresponded, and I met her on several later occasions under less daunting circumstances. I proudly sent her my first offprint on a Carboniferous spore, and she responded by sending many of her palaeobotanical offprints, which I cherished.

Early Years - University College London Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was born in Edinburgh on 15 October 1880. Her father, a civil

From: BOWDEN, A.J., BUREK, C.V. & WILDING, R. (eds) 2005. History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essays. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 241, 127-135. 0305-8719/057$ 15.00 © The Geological Society of London 2005.

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Fig. 1. Marie Stopes aged 24, a photograph taken around 1904-1905, perhaps when she was in Munich. The light source for her microscopy is a gas mantle. The water-filled globe would have served as a condenser for top illumination, but does not seem to be aligned for that purpose in this photograph. Her slide on the microscope stage is larger than a standard 3 X 1 inch, and may have been a coal-ball section. Reproduced by kind permission of her son, Harry Stopes-Roe.

engineer, was an enthusiastic and dedicated 'amateur' archaeologist. As a young girl, Marie helped him to wash and prepare items from archaeological digs, and helped him to catalogue his collection. She was educated at home by her mother, and started conventional schooling only at the age of 12. By then her parents had moved to London, and she went on to the North London Collegiate School, from which she matriculated, and was accepted as a student in University College London. Interestingly, she sought to major in Chemistry, but that department would not accept her. However, Professor RW. Oliver (co-discoverer with D.H. Scott of the pteridosperms), then Professor of Botany, accepted her to major in botany, with chemistry and zoology as subsidiary subjects. This may well have been an important element in diverting her career into botany, and thence palaeobotany. For at the end of her first year she got a gold medal in botany, and was second in her year in zoology. In order to speed up her academic progress (and in contravention of university regulations that you can only be a student in one college at a time!) she then regis-

tered at Birkbeck College, the night school of London University. This defiance of authority, combined with immense commitment and hard work, were a foretaste of what was to come. For she graduated with honours after only 2 years at University College, in Botany and Geology (Briant 1962) and this earned her a scholarship for a further year of (postgraduate) work in University College. It also appears to have funded her for a further year (1905-1906) of postgraduate work, which she elected to take in Munich in Professor Goebel's laboratory to work on cycad seeds. But the work she carried out in Oliver's department yielded two short papers on coal-ball plants (Stopes 1903a, b) and an ecological note on plants colonizing a dried-up river bed (Stopes 1903c).

Munich and Manchester Marie's work in Munich through 1903-1904 centred on cycad seed structure and function; although pure plant morphology, its theme was close to palaeob-

THE PALAEOBOTANIC AL WORK OF MARIE STOPES

otany. For Oliver & Scott (1903) had just revealed the true nature of the pteridosperms, and their seeds had been for some time recognized as being closer to those of the cycads than those of any other living group. Remarkably, she was able to complete her research in Goebel's laboratory within a year, presented and defended a thesis in German, and was awarded her doctorate magna cum laudel That work was published, in German, later that year (Slopes 1904). In a remarkably telescoped sequence of only 4 years, she had progressed from undergraduate admission to University College to a Munich PhD. While at Munich, Stopes met the Japanese botanist Kenjiro Fujii who was also carrying out research at that time in Goebel's laboratory. Much has been written about the nature and scope of their relationship at that time, and as it subsequently developed (see especially Hall 1977; Rose 1992). In the context of this paper, it need only be noted that it had a significant role in the development of her research, and the year (1907-1908) that she was later to spend in Japan. Their first joint paper emerged directly from work carried out together in Munich (Stopes & Fujii 1906) on the nutritive role of the female gametophyte in living gymnosperms. Although dealing with living plants, the structures and processes involved were highly relevant to the function of primitive seeds, and, indeed, to seed evolution. When in 1904 Marie returned from Munich, she took up her first academic appointment as 'Demonstator' in the Botany Department at Manchester University where, aged 23, she was the first female member of the scientific staff (Watson 2005). The department was headed at that time by Professor F.E. Weiss, who had already published on a number of papers on Carboniferous plants. It was in 1905, while Stopes was in Manchester, that she was made a DSc of London University, aged only 24. While at Manchester she carried out her first work on Mesozoic plants, publishing on the Middle Jurassic flora (of plant compression fossils) exposed on the Scottish coast at Brora (Stopes 1907d). This may well have played a role in the invitation that came to her later from the Natural History Museum in London to write a catalogue of the Cretaceous plants in the museum collection. It may also have contributed to her developing interest in one of the major themes of Mesozoic palaeobotany, then as now, the origin and rise of the angiosperms. Another product of her Manchester years (1904-1910) was her introduction to palaeobotany published as 'Ancient Plants' (Stopes 19Wb). This was aptly subtitled '... being a simple account of the vegetation of the Earth and of the recent important discoveries made in this realm of nature study'. It was, indeed, written for a readership unfamiliar with plant systematics and anatomy, and yet it carried the

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reader into such issues as the evolution of seeds, and the changes in climate through geological time and how plants had responded to them. It was a pioneering effort in being the first textbook of palaeobotany in the English language written at such a level. It makes an interesting comparison with Scott's Studies in Fossil Botany (Scott 1900) of which the second edition had just been published. This was a scholarly, but rather daunting, account of palaeobotany, dominated by Scott's interest in Carboniferous plants, and expressly the anatomical work made possible by coal-ball studies. Marie Stopes' book was, in the current jargon, a much more reader-friendly book, and one which undoubtedly led a number of young scientists (including the present author) into appreciating the excitement of palaeobotanical research.

Robert Falcon Scott and Glossopteris A minor side plot on Marie Stopes' time in Manchester concerns her meeting with 'Scott of the Antarctic' when he visited that city in 1905, prior to his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. In his biography of Stopes, Keith Briant (1962) describes how Scott met her at a dinner in Manchester, and how she had urged him to take both her and his own wife with him to Antarctica; and how, at the end of the evening, he had said that if he was unable to do this 'he would do his utmost to find for her the fossils that she wanted. Later, he visited her at the University to familiarize himself with the look of the fossils; and when he was found dead in the Antarctic, there were discovered near him some pieces of fossil plants' (Briant 1962). It is now well known that among the specimens found with Scott's party were the fragments of Glossopteris, subsequently described by Seward (1914). This record of Glossopteris in Antarctica supplied the missing piece in the palaeobotanical jigsaw of Gondwana; for at that time Glossopteris was already known from the other fragments of that Palaeozoic southern super-continent Australia, South America, Africa and India. Did Marie Stopes show Scott material of Glossopteris when he visited Manchester? Was this the fossil that she believed they might find in Antarctica? If so, did Scott's party realize that the fragments they had found were indeed of that genus, and that its occurrence in Antarctica was of great significance? Unfortunately, it seems not. Or, if she showed Scott Glossopteris, his memory of it may have faded. For Dr Wilson records in his diary (Seward 1914) that the leaves that they found in the Beacon Sandstone cliffs 'were like beech leaves in shape and venation, in size a little smaller than British Beech, and the venation much more abundant and finer in character'. Seward goes on to say that the

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Glossopteris leaves that he described 'are the beechlike impressions referred to' in Wilson's diary. So the excitement of finding that very significant fossil was missed until the geological specimens found with their bodies were put into Seward's hands.

Early angiosperms The origin of the angiosperms, and their earliest appearance in the fossil record, was an important element in Stopes' work. As she wrote: 'Except the origin of Man himself there are probably no problems in palaeontology of greater interest and importance, and of which less is known, than those which centre round the origin of Angiosperms, and the early history of that group' (Stopes 1912a). Her contributions to evidence bearing on the problem came from two different directions. The first was from material sent to her from Hokkaido, northern Japan, by Fujii, after he had returned there from his time in Europe. She believed that nodules known to be of Cretaceous age from that part of Japan might contain permineralized angiosperms and that, if so, these would be a significant palaeobotanical discovery; and she urged him to get hold of such material and to send it to her. June Rose (1992) records from Marie's diary that the material from Fujii arrived in October 1906 and that 'the first section cut revealed an angiosperm'. Marie used this critical information to support a bid to the Royal Society to fund her spending a year in Japan searching for angiosperm fossils. She was successful in this, and was to spend rather over a year (1907-1908) in Japan carrying out work on Cretaceous fossil plants with Fujii, which was subsequently published (Stopes 1909, 1910e; Stopes & Fujii 1909,1910). She wrote a very readable account of many aspects of that year in her book A Journal from Japan (Stopes 1910c). There can be little doubt that at least a part of her motivation in going to Japan was simply to rejoin Fujii. However, the palaeobotanical case for going was well substantiated, and amply vindicated by her subsequent publications. Perhaps the most significant was the trilocular ovary that was described as Cretovarium japonicum Stopes and Fujii (1910), a superior trilocular ovary which they attributed to the monocotyledonous family, the Liliaceae. This was of Santonian age, roughly equivalent to the middle part of the Upper Cretaceous Chalk Formation of northern Europe, representing then, as now, an early record of a secure angiosperm. Although Marie Stopes described it as 'the only known structural petrifaction of a true angiospermic flower' (Stopes 1910