GIUNTA PISANO was one of the principal of these artists, and is the earliest known Tuscan painter; Niccola was a sculptor, and Giunta appears to have preceded him for a time, though he was eventually much surpassed by him in design: and as they were contemporaries, the name of Niccola accordingly takes the lead in the list of celebrated Tuscan artists. Giunta may have been born about 1180 or 1190. He is said to have learned painting about 1210, from some Greek artists, who were then engaged probably at Pisa, a tradition which is disputed by some Italian historians of art, who suppose that Pisa had at that period its native artists. The arts were very active at Pisa, owing to the construction of the cathedral there, which was commenced in 1063. The notice of Giunta in question occurs in an old history of the Basilica of Assisi, by Pater Angioli, who says, 'Juncta Pisanus ruditer a Graecis instructus primus ex Italis artem apprehendit circa an. sal. 1210.'

PISA'NO is the surname of several distinguished artists | Alberto di Arnoldo in 1864; the error was detected by Vinof Pisa in the thirteenth century, namely, Giunta, Niccola, cenzio Follini: the documents are given by Cicognara and Giovanni, and Andrea Pisano. Of two of these artists, Nic- Rumohr. The half-figure of the Madonna above a side do cola and Giovanni, some account is given in the Penny of the Misericordia, on the wall of the Cialdonai, is the wes Cyclopædia, but chiefly as architects. [NICCOLA DI PISA. of Andrea, and was a celebrated work, because, says Vasari commences his Lives of Artists' with Cimabue, but contrary to his usual custom, he imitated the antique." Andra's there were several Tuscan artists anterior to Cimabue, es- great work in sculpture, however, was the bronze gate for the pecially at Siena and Pisa. [TUSCAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING, Baptistery of St. John, which he undertook to make from: P. C.] design by Giotto, who was in the time of Clement residing Avignon. He had a few years previously sent Pope Cle V. (1305-1314), through Giotto, a bronze crucifix as a prese and the excellence of this work led to the important coun sion to model and cast two of the bronze gates of the Bap tery, which, after the lapse of twenty-two years, says Vas (Baldinucci says eight years), in 1339, with the assistance his son Nino, he successfully accomplished; not that he m all this time exclusively occupied on this work, for he cxe-. cuted many others in the meanwhile. The sculptures a from the life of John the Baptist, and were gilded, and te gates were fixed up in the central entrance to the Baptiste, but upon the completion of the much more excellent gates 4 Ghiberti, they were removed to one of the side entran and those of Ghiberti were put in their place. The yo 1339 in Vasari appears to be a misprint; for, according t most good authorities, the gates bear the following inscript Andreas Ugolini Nini de Pisis me fecit anno doma MCCCXXX. (Cicognara, Storia della Scultura, iii. 396; La Lasinio, Le tre Porte del Battisterio di Firenze, Flore 1823, in which all the gates (six) are well engraved.) this date, according to Giovanni Villani, one of the sup intendents of the work, is the year in which they were menced; if therefore they occupied twenty-two years a this time, they were not finished until 1352, seven years Andrea's death, and accordingly by Nino, Andrea's son; this is impossible, as Villani, who died in 1348, saw the com tion of the work-the date therefore, 1330, is apparently year of the commencement of the casting in metal, w was done by Venetian artists, the model only being fir) in that year; they may therefore have occupied twenty, years from the commencement of the model to the comp of the cast. Twenty-two years from 1339 give 1317, one y after Giotto's return from Avignon, as the date of the mencement of the work, which is quite probable. A architect, Andrea designed the Castello di Scarperia Mugello at the foot of the Alps; and Vasari says, accor to report, the Arsenal of Venice, where he spent a year raised part of the walls of Florence eight ells in 1316 # designed the church of San Giovanni at Pistoja, commen in 1337, and he executed many works for Gualtieri, dar a Athens and tyrant of Florence, until the duke was exp from Florence in 1343.

Giunta appears to have attained considerable reputation, for Frat' Elia of Cortona, general of the Minorites, invited him about 1235, or sooner, to Assisi, to execute some works there in the upper church of San Francesco. There are still some remains of the paintings of Giunta in this church, around the window behind the altar. He painted also a Crucifixion in 1236, in which he introduced the portrait of Frat' Elia. The painters of this time were acquainted with some excellent water-colour medium, for another Crucifixion at Assisi, with other figures, painted upon a wooden cross in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, by Giunta, is remarkably solid in impasto and unaffected by water; it was painted probably about 1236, and has the following inscription upon it, according to the restoration suggested by Lanzi:-Junta Pisanus Juntini me fecit.' Lanzi assumes Giunta di Giustino to be the name, from the occurrence of this name in an old MS. mentioned by Morrona in his 'Pisa Illustrata.' Other existing works ascribed to Giunta are-a Crucifixion in San Ranieri at Pisa, a picture (a panel) of Saints in the chapel of the Campo Santo, and a Martyrdom of St. Peter in the church of San Francesco at Assisi (it is engraved by Lasinio in the 'Etruria Pittri' of Lastrici). The Campo Santo was built or commenced by Giovanni Pisano in 1278. (Archæologica, vol. xxiii. pt. 1.) Giunta was contemporary with Guido of Siena and Bonaventura Berlingieri of Lucca; and all belong to the Byzantine school in style-brown carnations, positive Andrea was made a citizen of Florence, and had o colour in the draperies, emaciated faces, drawn in coarse out-honours conferred upon him. He died in 1345, and lines with hatchings for the shadows, and elongated extremi- buried in Santa Maria del Fiore, where his son Nino 729) ties, even with occasional short thick figures; but their forms a monument and placed the following inscription to a are generally attenuated and emaciated. This meagreness of memory:form however, often had an historical and illustrative signification; as sorrow, resignation, or bodily suffering are almost exclusively the sentiments expressed in early paintings; as we also generally find to be the case in MSS. These peculiarities of style were not much improved until the time of Giotto, and not wholly corrected until Masaccio, two centuries later than Giunta. They were, says Lanzi, faults of the times rather than of the men. Mr. W. Y. Ottley possessed an old Italian distemper picture of the Crucifixion, which he supposed was a work by Giunta. Vasari has omitted the Life of this painter. There is no notice of him later than 1236, but he may have lived some time beyond this date.

ANDREA PISANO was another early artist of Pisa, but nearly a century later than Giunta and Niccola Pisani. He was born in 1280, was distinguished as architect and sculptor, and particularly as a metal-founder, in which art he was the first of his age. He is said by Vasari to have imitated the design of Giotto in the Campo Santo. He was invited early to Florence, where he executed several celebrated works. The first were statues of Pope Boniface VIII. and St. Peter and St. Paul, from designs by Giotto, for the façade of Santa Maria del Fiore; they are now, with other works by Andrea, in the Stiozzi garden al Valfonda; the pope is engraved in Cicognara's Storia della Scultura. Vasari attributes to Andrea the colossal Madonna and Child, and the two accompanying angels, in marble, in the chapel della Misericordia of the Piazza San Giovanni at Florence, but this was the work of

Ingenti Andrea jacet hic Pisanns in urna, Marmore qui potuit spirantes ducere vultus, Et simulacra Deum mediis imponere templis Ex aere, ex auro candenti et pulchro elephanto. Nino completed the unfinished works of his father, a executed many original works of merit. Tommaso Pi another pupil of Andrea, is supposed also to have beer son.

(Vasari, Vite de' Pittori, &c., and the notes to German translation by Schorn; Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, &r Cicognara, Storia della Scultura; Köhler, Kunstblatt, 1827 Rumohr, in the Kunstblatt, 1821, and Italienische Forschu D'Agincourt, Histoire de l'Art par les Monumens.) PISCARY. [FISHERIES, P. C.]

PISCIDIA (from piscis, a fish, and cædo, to kill or stroy), a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Le minosa. It has a campanulate 5-cleft calyx, an obtuse ke and a papilionaceous corolla. The stamens are monadelph with the tenth one free at the base. The style is filiform smooth, the legume pedicellate linear, furnished with fix membranous wings, the seeds separated by a spongy stance. The species are West Indian trees, with b unequally pinnate leaves and terminal panicles of white an flowers mixed.

P. erythrina (Dogwood) is a tree about twenty feet be The leaflets are in pairs, from 3 to 4 together; they oblong or obovate, rounded at the base, downy on both s

when young, but smooth when old. The racemes are com- machinery was made, according to Nicholson's 'Architectural pound, axillary, staminal. The flowers whitish tinged with Dictionary,' by General Bentham, who obtained a patent in purple. This plant possesses the peculiar property of intoxi- 1791 for a contrivance by which large planes, wide enough ating fish; the bark of the root is the part used. Dr. to take the whole width of a plank at one stroke, and supplied Hamilton, in a paper read before the Medico-Botanical So- with apparatus for directing their course, regulating the depth ciety of London, gives a lengthened account of this process to which they could cut, and, generally speaking, for superand of the properties and uses of this plant. He says that a seding the necessity of skill and judgment on the part of the preparation of the root is infused into the water containing the operator, might be worked either by mechanical power or by bish, which soon rise to the top. They float perfectly insen- manual labour. The machine was used for a time, worked by sible along, and are easily taken by the hand; they recover on hand, but did not succeed well. A patent was obtained in being thrown into pure sea-water, and neither their flavour nor 1803, by a person named Bevans, for a similar apparatus for aholesomeness is in any degree impaired. The same gen-planing, or, to use a technical term, sticking, mouldings, leman made a series of experiments on himself as to the effect rebates, grooves, &c. The improved principle, now generally if a tincture of this plant. Labouring under an attack of adopted, of moving the wood to the tool, instead of, or in evere toothache, he took a powerful dose of the tincture, combination with, the moving of the tool to the wood, was hich was succeeded by a profound sleep and entire relief introduced in Bramah's patent of 1802. In a beautiful marom pain on awakening. As a topical application to carious chine of this character constructed by Bramah for the Wooleth he found it equally successful, and came to the conclu-wich Arsenal the wood is placed upon a carriage and drawn, on that the tincture of the dogwood is more powerful than by hydraulic power, under the lower surface of a rapidly reat of opium. The root-juice is used to poison the arrows volving disk or wheel, to the face of which a series of planes ith which birds are shot in the Antilles. It is said to be or cutting instruments are attached, which, acting upon the effectual remedy for mange in dogs: it is also reputed to wood in quick succession, bring it to a very smooth and even 198688 tanning qualities. It is one of the best timber-trees surface. A remarkable feature in this machine is that the Jamaica; the wood is coarse, heavy, resinous, and almost vertical spindle which carries the revolving wheel or cutterperishable, lasting equally well in or out of water; hence it frame is supported, by hydrostatic pressure, upon a column akes excellent piles for docks and wharfs. of oil, its lower end forming, as it were, the piston of a hydrostatic press in which oil, instead of water, is the fluid employed. This arrangement not only saves much friction and wear, but also affords the means of adjusting and varying at pleasure, with the greatest accuracy, the height of the spindle, and consequently the level of the cutter-frame carried by it. Of both this and General Bentham's machinery very full details are given by Nicholson, and also in Barlow's Treatise on Machinery and Manufactures, in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana.' Machines for planing flooring-boards are mentioned under HOUSE, P. C. S., p. 54; and under SAW-MILL, P. C., p. 479, is noticed a contrivance for partially planing the surface of boards as they are cut in a saw-mill.

P. Carthaginensis is a native of Jamaica, Guadaloupe, and arthagena, on the mountains. It closely resembles the mer species, and is scarcely distinguishable from it. These es grow best in sandy loam; cuttings of them may be rooted sand under a hand-glass in heat.

(Don, Gardener's Dictionary; Lindley, Flora Medica; nett, Outlines of Botany.)

PISODUS, a genus of fossil fishes from Sheppey. wen.)

PISTIL. [STIGMA, P. C.]

PISTON. [STEAM-ENGINE, P. C.]
PISUM. [PEAS, P. C.; VICIE, P. C.]
PITCHER-PLANTS. [LEAF, P. C.]

Immense saving of labour, accompanied with a corresponding improvement in accuracy, has been effected by the application of planing-machinery to the levelling of iron and other metals, in lieu of the cold chisel and the file, worked by hand. In some instances this has been done on the principle of Bramah's machine, above referred to; but more generally the planing of iron is effected by a stationary cutter, the iron being brought under it by a rectilinear motion. For this purpose it is not usual to employ wide cutting-instruments, as for wood; but a narrow tool, cutting a mere line of the surface at once, is brought into contact with all parts of the surface to be levelled in succession; the action of the machine being more like that of a lathe and slide-rest than that of wood-planing machinery, and still more widely different from the action of a hand-plane, in which the accuracy of the surface is in a great measure dependent upon the width and extended face of the stock. In some machines the cutter is raised a little during the return of the carriage after a stroke; but others are so contrived that at the end of each stroke the cutter is turned round and again applied to the iron, so as to cut in both directions. A minute account, illustrated with plates, of the admirable metal-planing machinery of Mr. Joseph Clement, of Newington Butts, is given in the forty-ninth volume of the Transactions' of the Society of Arts, part i., pp. 157-185.

PITUS, a genus of fossil plants from the Carboniferous a of Tweeddale. (Witham.) PLANE, PLANING MACHINERY. Of the planes mmonly used by carpenters and cabinet-makers for levelling d smoothing the surface of wood, an account is given under NERY, P. C. S., p. 123, where the use of what is termed double-iron is briefly alluded to. This improvement, which been in common use for many years, is not found sufficient, all cases, to meet the difficulties which arise in planing nd and coarse woods. To remedy this defect Mr. C. W. illiamson contrived, and submitted to the Society of Arts 1825, what he terms a double-bevelled plane, in which a gle iron is used, but it is made thicker than those of dinary planes, and its edge is produced by two bevels instead one. By this arrangement is produced a cutting edge hich is much stronger, will retain its keenness much longer, id will cut much smoother' than any other plane known to inventor. This modification of form has the further Ivantage of allowing the use of the finest cast-steel for aking the plane-iron; whereas the comparative weakness of lane-irons of the ordinary make had presented serious diffialties in the way of applying that material, although it is hown to be preferable to any other for cutting-instruments. fuller account of this invention, coupled with a testimony PLANTA'GO, a genus of plants, the type of the natural to the superiority of the improved plane for use in smooth-order Plantagineæ. It has a 4-cleft calyx, a corolla with g box-wood for the use of engravers, is given in the an ovate tube and a 4-parted reflexed limb. The capsules Society's Transactions,' vol. xlviii., pp. 86-88. In the pre- burst transversely; they are from 2 to 4 celled and have from eding volume of the same work (pp. 83-85) is a description of 2 to 4 seeds. In ingenious contrivance rewarded by the Society in 1824, 'to make one plane answer the purposes of the jack-plane, the pannel-plane, the smoothing-plane, and the moulding-plane,' by having the bottom, or sole, of the plane moveable, and attached to the body of the stock by means of a dove-tailed ore. By this contrivance a workman may have several different irons or blades, and any number of different soles, made either flat like those of an ordinary plane, convex or Concave in different degrees, either longitudinally or transversely, for planing curved surfaces, or adapted to the form of nogee or other moulding, all fitted to one stock, thereby effecting a great saving both in expense and portability. This ontrivance is the invention of Mr. G. Gladwell, who, like the author of the double-bevelled plane, is described as a working carpenter.

The first attempt to economize labour by means of planing

P. Coronopus, Buck's-horn Plantain, has linear pinnatifid leaves, with a slender spike; the bracts are subulate from an ovate base, erect; the midrib of the lateral sepals with a ciliated membranous wing; the placenta 4-winged, with one seed in each sell. This species is found in gravelly and sandy places, both near the sea and inland. It is native of Great Britain. It has been eaten as a salad, but it is too bitter and astringent to be palatable, and these qualities have given it some reputation as an expectorant and vulnerary. Strange accounts are given of its efficacy in medicine, and some very improbable cures attributed to its use.

P. maritima has linear grooved fleshy leaves, convex on the back; the sepals not winged, the capsules 2-seeded, the tube of the corolla pubescent, the spike cylindrical, the bracts ovate acuminate. It is found on the sea-coast and on high mountains in Great Britain.

P. lanceolata is distinguished by its leaves being lanceolate, attenuated at both ends, and 5-nerved; the scape furrowed, the spike ovate or oblong; cylindrical bracts, ovate-acute or cuspidate; the capsules 2-celled, the cells 1-seeded, the tube of the corolla glabrous. The root produces long fibres; the neck is clothed with dense wool, and the scape and leaves with silky hairs. This species was once cultivated as an agricultural plant, but was found to be unprofitable, and has long ceased to be sown.

P. media is known by its ovate leaves, with short broad pubescent stalks; the sepals are not keeled; the capsules 2-celled, and each cell contains one seed. It is found in meadows and pastures in England. The leaves and root have been used in decoction as an astringent lotion.

1572. Plantin was not so learned as the Aldi of Venice
or the Estiennes of Paris, but his Latin prefaces to severa f
the works which he printed seem sufficiently to estab
that he had acquired considerable scholarship.
(Weiss, in Biographie Universelle; Maittaire, Arch
Typographici.)

PLANTS, FOSSIL. The progress of knowledge e-
cerning the vegetation which in antient geological periaa
covered the surface of our planet has been, until with a
few years, neither rapid nor sure.
No small amount of te
and patience was required to establish the conviction t
organization, not crystallization, was indicated by the wo
leaves, and fruits which abound in the stratification of Euro
Much profound investigation of the natural orders of plane
was an indispensable preliminary to the reference of eve
perfect specimens of fossil plants to their living congener
and microscopic scrutiny of the minutest tissues could al
determine in fragments of petrified wood the essential chara
ters of primæval trees.

P. major, Great Plantain, has broadly ovate, leaves on a long channelled stalk, terete scapes, an elongated spike, ovate obtuse keeled bracts, the sepals with a prominent dorsal nerve, the capsules 2-celled, each cell containing many seeds. It is found in Great Britain, and has been called Way-bred,' from its prevalence on the way side. This plant has a These investigations have been so far advanced by cine! peculiar tendency to grow in the neighbourhood of the living botanists, that a very great proportion of fossil p abodes of men, and seems as though it followed the migra- has been satisfactorily referred to the proper classe tions of the human species. Thus, although not inten- great natural orders, and in some instances to the tri tionally conveyed, it has accompanied our colonists to every families and genera. On this basis, furnished by phy part of the world, and is known in some of our settle-gical botany, geologists have erected very important i ments to the natives under the name of The Englishman's ences and very remarkable speculations-inferences conve foot; for with a strange certainty, wherever our country-ing the succession of vegetable life, and the varying du men have trod, there it is to be found. Small birds are almost universally fond of the seeds of these plants, which are covered with mucus. According to De Candolle the seeds of Plantago arenaria are exported in considerable quantities from Nismes and Montpellier to the north of Europe, and are supposed to be consumed in the completion of the manufacture of muslins. The seeds of P. Ispaghula are of a very cooling nature, and with boiling water form a rich mucilage, which is much used in India in catarrh, gonorrhoea, and nephritic affections. Soda is obtained in Egypt from the ashes of P. squarrosa, (Babington, Manual of British Botany; Lindley, Vegetable Kingdom; Lindley, Flora Medica; Burnett, Outlines of Botany.) PLANTAIN. P. C. S.]

[PLANTAGINACEA, P. C.; PLANTAGO,

PLANTIN, CHRISTOPHE, was born in 1514, at Mont-Louis, in the French province of Touraine, of poor parents. He went to Paris in his youth, and worked there some time in a bookbinder's shop, but afterwards went to Caen, in Normandy, where he learned the art of printing, After working in several of the printing-offices of France, and especially at Lyon, he returned to Paris, but the religious disturbances, which commenced about that time, induced him to remove to Flanders, and he is known to have been a master printer at Antwerp in 1555. The beauty as well as the correctness of the works which issued from his presses, extended his reputation rapidly, and he soon acquired a considerable fortune. He employed as correctors of the press several men distinguished for their learning, among whom were Corneille Kilian, who was fifty years in his establishment, Pulman (Poelmann), Giselin, and Raphelengius (Ravlen. ghien). Plantin's house was resorted to by learned men from all countries. He died July 1, 1589, and was buried in the cathedral at Antwerp. Besides his printing-establishment at Antwerp, he had one at Paris, and another at Leyden. Plantin had three daughters. The eldest was married to Raphelengius, and he inherited the printing-office at Leyden; the second daughter was married to Jean Moretus, and he carried on the business at Antwerp, in conjunction with his mother-in-law: the youngest daughter was married to Gilles Béys, who succeeded to the printing-office at Paris.

The work which has given most celebrity to Plantin's printing establishment at Antwerp, is the edition which he printed of the great Polyglott Bible, which had previously been printed at Alcala, in Spain, under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes. [CISNEROS, P. C.] Plantin was engaged to perform the work by Philip II. of Spain, who sent Arius Montanus to superintend it, and he was employed four years (1568 to 1572) in this occupation. [ARIUS MONTANUS, P. C.] Guillaume Lebé was sent for from Paris to engrave the punches and superintend the casting of the type. The work, in addition to the contents of the Alcala Polyglott, gave a Chaldaic paraphrase and a Syriac version of the New Testament in Hebrew and Syriac characters. The proofs of the Antwerp Polyglott were all revised by Raphelengius, and the work was published in 8 large folio volumes, 1568 to

bution of land and sea; and speculations concerning antient temperature of the surface of the globe, and di antient chemical constitution of the atmosphere...

Passing over, but not without approbation, the e labours of Steinhauer, Parkinson, and Artis, in England Schlottheim, Sternberg, Rhode, and Martius, in Geron of Nilson and Agardh, in Sweden, we may safely attribu M. Adolphe Brongniart the advanced position among a natural sciences which is conceded to fossil botany. Gull by views of botanical classification at once profound and tically applicable to the subject before him, this zeala turalist, by personal observations over great part of E (1825 and following years) and by communications aj many distant parts of the world, gathered and metho that body of information which is the basis of his two m works, viz. the Prodrome d'une Histoire des Vi Fossiles,' 1828; and the Histoire des Vegetaux Foss which occupied many subsequent years.

A somewhat parallel but less extensive inquiry has been undertaken in England by Dr. Lindley and Mr. H (Fossil Flora of Great Britain, 1831-36); Göppert (S Filicum Fossilium, 1836), has revised the numerous tribe fossil ferns; Mr. Bowerbank has collected extensive infurm tion concerning the fossil fruits of the London clay, and are indebted to Dr. Brown, Mr. Witham, Mr. Bowman, ka King, and some other writers for a variety of notices on ticular tribes of fossil plants. Mr. Morris has combined a his catalogue a summary of the results for the British Islan

Previous to the year 1828 there can hardly be said to been specifically known so many as one hundred fossil p In the Prodrome of M. Brongniart appeared (p. 219) fossil plants, while the recent tribes were estimated at 50 In 1845 Mr. Göppert estimated the known fossil pisa 1792, and the recent species at 80,000. (Reports of the i tish Association.) Following the classification of M, Bre niart, we find his 501 plants thus divided and compared va living tribes:ca,

It thus appears that the vascular Cryptogamia numerics constituted above half the fossil flora known in 1828, wh among living plants they count only as 1 in 30; and dicotyledonous group, which includes more than half th recent plants, is represented in the stratification of the g by one-fifth. These results, though modified by later coveries, are still firmly established. Are we to concis from this statement, that the vegetation of the antient world was entirely different in the numerical proportions of its stituent classes from the actual flora? Do the plants whi we collect in the strata truly represent the entirety of the

antient flora; or only such part of it as remained after decay and the transforming agencies of nature had destroyed another and perhaps larger proportion? M. Brongniart (though not without some limiting expressions and corrections) generally assumes the fossil flora preserved in the strata as proportionate to the flora that was in existence before those strata were leposited; and arranging the 501 species of fossil plants in eriods of geological succession, as well as in groups of natural finity, arrives at results which appear in the following table. We have altered the form of the original, and added the eneral terms Palæozoic, Mesozoic, &c., in conformity with eviews advocated in this work.)**

little room for doubt that the plants were speedily enveloped in mud, and not for a long time scattered in water. They appear in fact to be a fair sample of the vegetation which actually prevailed on or near to the spots where they are found buried, and were subject to be drifted for that distance by water transporting mud and sand. Sometimes drifted in a fresh state, sometimes in a decomposed state, according to the degree in which they had withstood atmospheric rather than watery agencies, these plants should perhaps rather be compared to the weeds which cover the surface of some rivers in flood, than to the rotten vegetation at the bottom of stagnant pools. This comparison has, we believe, not yet been made under favourable circumstances, but certainly the flood-transported plants on English rivers are by no means to be taken as a sample of our upland flora, if even they do tolerably represent the vegetation of the river-banks.

Another important question affecting the general inferences to be derived from the study of fossil plants remains to be asked. Did these plants grow in or near to the situations

fual period 7000 1500 1700 150 8000 32,000CAINOZOIC where now they remain buried? The answer must be affirurth period 13. 2 7. 17 25* 100*

3

ird period
ond period 7
st period:

8

3

0

0

31 35
220* 0 16

MESOZOIC
PALEOZOIC

Hence it would appear that vascular Cryptogamia had their atest predominance in the first (Palæozoic) period: that nospermous Phanerogamia acquired their greatest developit in the third (Mesozoic) period, while true Monocotyleous and Dicotyledonous plants became most numerous in fourth (Cainozoic) period, and in it approximated to the portions now actually observed between them in living But it is thought by Dr. Lindley (Fossil Flora, vol. iij. that the proportions among the several classes and hes of plants preserved in the strata may be very differfrom those which obtained between the plants when living, se only part of the whole living creation of plants could pected to resist long immersion in water and the many ructive agencies which are at work on vegetable subes, so as to be preserved in the earth. And this view is certain extent confirmed by experiments made by Dr. ey, for the purpose of ascertaining the relative conservay of plants belonging to different natural families. for this purpose, on the 21st of March, 1833, he immersed large iron tank full of water, 177 specimens of various ats, belonging to all the more remarkable natural orders, g care, in particular, to include representatives of all those are either constantly present in the coal-measures or as ersally absent. The vessel was left uncovered in the air, and filled with water as it evaporated, till the 22nd , 1835.The result of the experiment was then regisin respect of each plant: of the 177 tried, 56 only re ned recognizable in the water; 121 were not to be traced. numbers were thus proportioned in several natural

mative in some cases, doubtful in many, and negative in the remainder. It must be affirmative in respect of many cases of Stigmaria, if we admit the stems of this plant, with their articulated leaf-like processes, to be really the roots of trees analogous to Stigmaría and Lepidodendron; and to this, now a prevalent opinion, M. Adolphe Brongniart has assented. It must be affirmative in respect of the Cycadeoid plants of the Isle of Purbeck, which remain yet rooted as in their period of life, with the bed of soil in which they grew.

In the case of the great proportion of fern-leaves, and scattered branches and fragments of stems of Lepidodendra, which abound in the roof of many coal-beds, we cannot doubt that these have been subject to drifting, though it is not easy to determine from what distance or in what direction; as however the leaves retain almost universally their figure, expansion, and veins, and are represented by so much of a carbona ceous pellicle as may correspond to their whole mass, and have sometimes preserved their fructification, we need not suppose them to have been drifted from far, nor to have been long immersed in water.

Many other cases of fossil plants occur, which require us to admit at least the possibility of their having been drifted from great distances. The large broken stem of coniferous wood found in the sandstone of Craigleith, and described by Mr. Witham, may be taken as an example. It suggests, concerning many other cases of coniferous fossil wood found in the lias, oolites, Wealden and London clay, the idea of a great muddy river flowing through a woody region, and depositing in marshy plains, in æstuaries, or in the bed of the open sea, the spoils collected in its course. In this latter case we frequently observe the wood to be perforated by Teredines (London clay).

From the above observations we collect that the large accumulations of fossil plants which belong to certain stratified deposits, represent approximately, though not completely nor exactly, the flora of the period of their deposition at and near the places where they are found; but that single plants 12 or scattered small collections of them may have been derived from remote situations.

T Tried. Recognizable. Lost.

12

43

35

19

Among the Acotyledones the recognizable families were stly Filices, and Lycopodiaceae, these being frequent fossil state. Among the Dicotyledones apetale the cognizable plants were numerous, especially in the Coniferæ, d these abound in a fossil state. With these exceptions, Dicotyledonous plants tried were, in general, unable to main for two years in water without being totally decomsed. The Monocotyledonous plants were found more pable of resisting the action of water, especially Palms and elamineous plants, which occur as fossils; ferns exhibited a eat power of resisting water, if gathered in a green state, mersion in water caused their fructification to rot away. If we were completely assured by observation that the cirmstances under which the fossil plants were buried in the sediments now hardened around them, were similar to those ander which the above-narrated experiments were made, the ferences from the experiments might be relied on for modifying and perfecting a general view of the antient vegetation of the globe. But this is not the case; we have no such stirance. On the contrary, in very many cases there is

Can we, from the catalogues of fossil plants, determine what was the climate in which they flourished during primæval periods? Confining our attention to the British Isles, we remark three great accumulations of fossil plants, in three successive periods. The land vegetation of Paleozoic periods is well represented by the plants of our coal-measures; that of the Mesozoic periods by the plants of the oolitic shales of the Yorkshire coast; and that of Cainozoic ages is known to us in some particulars by the deposits of Sheppey, rich in seed-vessels.

The most numerous group of fossil plants, in the two former great periods, is certainly the tribe of Ferns, which, with the other vascular Cryptogamia, are known to be most numerous, in comparison of the other races of plants, in countries where the climate is warm and the atmosphere damp. Some of these are Tree-ferns, which remarkably characterize warm though not necessarily very hot climates. With these are associated in great abundance large stems, like Cacteaceae; others like gigantic Equisetacea; others like monstrous hybrids of Lycopodiaceae and Coniferæ, and a few Palms; all confirming, by their structural analogies, the conclusion that the climate of the carboniferous period in the northern zones of Great Britain was warm. Now this conclusion applies with equal force to the whole of the European and North

Abies..
Alethopteris
Araucarites.
Brachyphyllum.
Bucklandia
Carpolithes
Chondrites
Clathraria
Confervites
Cycadites
Cyclopteris
Dictyophyllum
Dracæna.
Echinostachys
Endogenites
Equisetites
Fucoides.
Halymenites
Lonchopteris
Lycopodites.

6 Nipadites

1 Petrophiloides

8 Pinites

13 Strobilites

25 Tricarpellites

1 Witherellia.

10 Xuliosprionites.

Aphlebia
Artisia
Aspidiaria
Asterophyllites.
Bechera
Bornia
Bruckmannia
Calamites
Cardiocarpon
Carpolithes
Caulopteris
Chondrites

Strobilites

2 Taxites

1 Tæniopteris .

2 Thuytes.
1 Tympanophora.

4 Walchia.
2 Zamites
8

Paleozoic Strata.

11 Crepidopteris
1 Cyclocladia.
2 Cyclopteris
2 Cyperites
1 Endogenites
3 Equisetites
5 Favularia