Fossil botany, or paleophytology, was founded, in 1828, by Adolphe Brongniart. Witham, Goeppert, Unger, Corda, and others helped to advance this science.
The publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 1859 found the various botanical sciences already well worked out by numerous capable experts. A huge amount of data and descriptive matter had been assembled and botany, like the other sciences, was ready to be quickened by the Darwinian theories.
The idea of a progressive evolution in plants had been suspected by many botanists, but the genius of Darwin developed it. Living plants were pictured as a multitude of units competing for food, light, air, and room for growth, and struggling against unfavorable environments. The classification of tissues was begun, and the phenomena of absorption of water and salts, the ascent of sap, the absorption of minerals and nitrogen, and metabolism and growth were elucidated. Investigations were made into the nature and functions of chlorophyll and other plant substances. These studies resulted in suggesting means for improving crops by artificial selection, as shown in the work of Luther Burbank.
Geology is essentially a nineteenth century product. Fossils, minerals, rocks, and rock strata had attracted more or less attention from the earliest times. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans had books dealing with such subjects, and Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, lectured upon them. But it was only in the last century that geology was placed upon a scientific basis and began to make progress. The reformation was begun by Cuvier's work on paleontology, the chemical and physical discoveries of the eighteenth century, and the works of Hooke, Boyle, Buffon, Linnæus, and others. The special technique required in geographical research could not be developed until the biological, anatomical, botanical, and physical sciences had been established on a scientific plane. That is why geology remained for so many centuries undeveloped, and then rapidly advanced during the nineteenth century. Its preparation was long and involved, while its fruition was rapid and brilliant.
William Smith (1769-1839), called the father of English geology, was a mining surveyor engaged in making colliery and farm surveys in Oxfordshire and the west of England. His professional work led him to study the coal outcrops, and in 1793 he mapped the inclined coal deposits in Somersetshire. The numerous rock strata accompanying the coal beds contained fossils which he found could be used to identify the beds in that field with others in northern counties. He published an account of this manner of using type fossils for identifying fossiliferous rock formations in 1799, and in 1815 issued his geological map of England, Wales, and southern Scotland. This map showed the advantages that scientific geology and mineralogy offered to industry and caused scientists all over Europe to study geological phenomena and make sketch maps of local geology.