Brongniart's "Monocotyledons" were no doubt Cordaiteae. Witham, we see, set the great man right as regards the antiquity of Dicotyledons, in which, of course, Gymnosperms were then included.
Witham's earlier papers were embodied in his book: _The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of Great Britain, described and illustrated_, 1833. It is dedicated to William Hutton, author, with Lindley, of the _Fossil Flora_ of Great Britain.
A passage from the dedication shows that Witham took his work seriously--"To lend my aid in bringing from their obscure repositories the ancient records of a former state of things, with the view of disclosing the early and mysterious operations of the Great Author of all created things, will ever be to me a source of unalloyed pleasure."
Witham thus fully realised the important significance of the work on which he was engaged. He must have been an interesting person of a somewhat complex character, and I wish we could know more about him. He died on Nov. 28th, 1844. Like all his family, he was a Roman Catholic[120].
Witham's localities on the Tweed remained practically unvisited until Mr Kidston re-explored them eight or nine years ago, with brilliant success--the results, however, are still unpublished.
Edward William Binney, the first investigator of the Lancashire coal-balls, was born at Morton in Nottinghamshire in 1812, and was thus only four years senior to Williamson. He settled in Manchester in 1836, and practised as a solicitor. He early showed scientific tastes; the Manchester Geological Society was started, chiefly by his influence, in October 1838. He was concerned in the discovery of the famous St Helen's trees, which first proved the connection between _Sigillaria_ and _Stigmaria_. "Binney completed the proof that all coal-seams rest on old soils which are constituted entirely of vegetable matter; this was the seat-stone of a seam of coal" (Robert Hunt). He gave up the practice of Law, and, devoting himself to science, became a leading authority on northern geology, and rendered important aid to the Geological Survey by his long experience of the coal-fields of Lancashire and Cheshire. He assisted in the discovery of the Torbane Hill mineral or Boghead Cannel, a deposit once notorious as a subject of litigation, and more recently as a bone of scientific contention. Binney died on December 19, 1881. Etheridge said of him: "He was a man of the highest honour and remarkably outspoken; his sturdiness and strength of character being rarely equalled."