Title: Remains of fossil plants

Creator: Samuel Springsguth

Description: From: Parkinson, James, ‘Organic remains of a former world. An examination of the mineralized remains of the vegetables and animals of the antediluvian world; generally termed extraneous fossils’, London: J. Robson (1804-1811). Plate 8.

The surgeon James Parkinson (1755-1824) is probably best known today for his identification of ‘Shaking Palsy’ which he described in a publication in 1817.  The condition was named Parkinson’s Disease in 1876.

However he was also a keen palaeontologist and would found the Geological Society in November 1807 with twelve others.  Parkinson’s first palaeontological book ‘Organic Remains of a Former World’ (1804) was written in epistolary form and based on religious concepts of the Flood.

This particular volume, which concerns plant fossils, once belonged to George Bellas Greenough (1778-1855), another of the Society’s founders.

Date: 1804

Format: Hand coloured engraving

Image reference: 04-86

Recommended print size: Up to 16 x 12 inches (40 x 30cm)