Excerpt from Fossil Plants, Vol. 2: A Text-Book for Students of Botany and Geology

I Regret that pressure of other work has prevented the completion of this Volume within a reasonable time since the publication of Volume I. Had Volume II been written ten years ago, the discoveries made in the course of the last decade would have given an out-of-date character to much of the subject-matter. It is more especially in regard to the Ferns and the extinct members of the Gymnosperms that our outlook has been materially altered by recent contributions to Palaeobotany. It is, however, some satisfaction to be able to add that recent progress has been relatively slight in that part of the subject dealt with in the first volume.

The original intention was to complete the whole work in two volumes. Soon after the second volume was begun, it became evident that the remaining divisions of the plant-kingdom could not be included within the compass of a single volume. I decided, therefore, to take the consequences of having embarked on too ambitious a plan of treatment, and to preserve uniformity of proportion by reserving the seed-bearing plants for a third volume The third volume will include the Pteridosperms, other than those briefly described in the final chapter of the present, volume, and other classes of Gymnosperms.

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