Title: Remains of fossil plants, mostly ferns

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 4.

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.  He has written captions below some of the images, probably because there are no specific plate descriptions.  Information on each specimen is scattered throughout the volume’s 461 pages.

The identification and naming of fossil species was still in their infancy, so Greenough suggests names of living fern species such as Pteris, Dicksonia and Polypodium.

Date: 1804

Format: Hand coloured engraving

Image reference: 04-82

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