have deepened and widened the channels of information. The literature on fossil plants is now vast; so great that to give merely the names of the publications would fill a very large volume.

But, like the records left by the plants themselves, most of this literature is unreadable by any but specialists, and its really vital interest is enclosed in a petrifying medium of technicalities. It is to give their results in a more accessible form that the present volume has been written.

The actual plants that lived and died long ago have left either no trace of their form and character, or but imperfect fragments of some of their parts embedded in hard rock and often hidden deep in the earth. That such difficulties lie in our way should not discourage us from attempting to learn all the fossils can teach. Many an old manuscript which is torn and partly destroyed bears a record, the fragments of which are more interesting and important than a tale told by a complete new book. The very difficulty of the subject of fossil botany is in itself an incentive to study, and the obstacles to be surmounted before a view of the ancient plants can be seen increase the fascination of the journey.

The world of to-day has been nearly explored; but the world, or rather the innumerable world-phases of the past, lie before us practically unknown, bewilderingly enticing in their mystery. These untrodden regions are revealed to us only by the fossils lying scattered through the rocks at our feet, which give us the clues to guide us along an adventurous path.

Fables of flying dragons and wondrous sea monsters have been shown by the students of animal fossils to be no more marvellous than were the actual creatures which once inhabited the globe; and among the plants such wonderful monsters have their parallels in the floras of the past. The trees which are living to-day are very recent in comparison with the ancestors of the families of lowlier plants, and most of the modern forest trees have usurped a position which once belonged to the monster members of such families as the Lycopods and Equisetums, which are now humble and dwindling. An ancient giant of the past is seen in the frontispiece, and the great girth of its stem offers a striking contrast to the feeble trailing branches of its living relatives, the Club-mosses.

As we follow their histories we shall see how family after family has risen to dominate the forest, and has in its turn given place to a succeeding group. Some of the families that flourished long since have living descendants of dwarfed and puny growth, others have died out completely, so that their very existence would have been unsuspected had it not been revealed by their broken fragments entombed in the rocks.

From the study of the fossils, also, we can discover something of the course of the evolution of the different parts of the plant body, from the changes it has passed through in the countless ages of its existence. Just as the dominant animals of the past had bodies lacking in many of the characters which are most important to the living animals, so did the early plants differ from those around us to-day. It is the comparative study of living and fossil structures which throws the strongest light on the facts and factors of evolution.

When the study of fossil organisms goes into minute detail and embraces the fine subtleties of their internal structure, then the student of fossil plants has the advantage of the zoological observer, for in many of the fossil plants the cells themselves are petrified with a perfection that no fossil animal tissues have yet been found to approach. Under the microscope the most delicate of plant cells, the patterns on their walls, and sometimes even their nuclei can be recognized as clearly as if they were living tissues. The value of this is immense, because the external appearance of leaves and stems is often very deceptive, and only when both external appearance and internal structure are known can a real estimate of the character of the plant be made. In the following chapters a number of photographs taken through the microscope will show some of the cell structure from fossil plants. Such figures as fig. 11 and fig. 96, for example, illustrate the excellence of preservation which is often found in petrified plant tissues. Indeed, the microscope becomes an essential part of the equipment of a fossil botanist; as it is to a student of living plants. But for those who are not intending to specialize on the subject micro-photographs will illustrate sufficient detail, while in most modern museums some excellently preserved specimens are exhibited which show their structure if examined with a magnifying glass.

We recognize to-day the effect the vegetation of a district has on its scenery, even on its more fundamental nature; and we see how the plants keep in close harmony with the lands and waters, the climates and soils of the places they inhabit. So was it in the past. Hence the fossil plants of a district will throw much light on its physical characters during the epoch when they were living, and from their evidence it is possible to build up a picture of the conditions of a region during the epochs of its unwritten history.

From every point of view a student of living plants will find his knowledge and understanding of them greatly increased by a study of the fossils. Not only to the botanist is the subject of value, the geologist is equally concerned with it, though from a slightly different viewpoint, and all students of the past history of the earth will gain from it a wider knowledge of their specialty.

To all observers of life, to all philosophers, the whole history of plants, which only approaches completion when the fossils are studied, and compared or contrasted with living forms, affords a wonderful illustration of the laws of evolution on which are based most of the modern conceptions of life. Even to those whose profession necessitates purely practical lines of thought, fossil botany has something to teach; the study of coal, for instance, comes within its boundaries. While to all who think on the world at all, the story told by the fossil plants is a chapter in the Book of Life which is as well worth reading as any in that mystical volume.

CHAPTER II
VARIOUS KINDS OF FOSSIL PLANTS

Of the rocks which form the solid earth of to-day, a very large proportion have been built up from the deposits at the bottom of ancient oceans and lakes. The earth is very old, and in the course of its history dry land and sea, mountains and valleys have been formed and again destroyed on the same spot, and it is from the silt at the bottom of an ocean that the hills of the future are built.

The chief key we have to the processes that were in operation in the past is the course of events passing under our eyes to-day. Hence, if we would understand the formation of the rocks in the ancient seas, we must go to the shores of the modern ones and see what is taking place there. One of the most noticeable characters of a shore is the line of flotsam that is left by the edge of the waves; here you may find all kinds of land plants mixed with the sea shells and general rubbish, plants that may have drifted far. Much of the débris (outside towns) is brought down by the rivers, and may be carried some distance out to sea; then part