Brown Algæ (seaweeds) have often been described as fossils. This is very natural, as so many fossils have been found in marine deposits, and when among them there is anything showing a dark, wavy impression, it is usually described as a seaweed. And possibly it may be one, but such an impression does not lead to much advance in knowledge. From the early Palæozoic rocks of both Europe and America a large fossil plant is known from the partially petrified structure of its stem. There seem to be several species, or at least different varieties of this, known under the generic name Nematophycus. Specimens of this genus are found to have several anatomical characters common to the big living seaweeds of the Laminaria type, and it is very possible that the fossils represent an early member of that group. In none of these petrified specimens, however, is there any indication of the microscopic structure of reproductive organs, so that the exact nature of the fossils is not determinable. It is probable that though perhaps allied to the Laminarias they belong to an entirely extinct group.
An interesting and even amusing chapter might be written on all the fossils which look like algæ and even have been described as such. The minute river systems that form in the moist mud of a foreshore, if preserved in the rocks (as they often are, with the ripples and raindrops of the past), look extraordinarily like seaweeds—as do also countless impressions and trails of animals. In this portion of the study of fossils it is better to have a healthy scepticism than an illuminating imagination.
Diatoms, with their hard siliceous shells, are naturally well preserved as fossils (see [fig. 121]), for even if the protoplasm decays the mineral coats remain practically unchanged.
Diatoms to-day exist in great numbers, both in the cold water of the polar regions and in the heat of hot springs. Often, in the latter, one can see them actually being turned into fossils. In the Yellowstone Park they are accumulating in vast numbers over large areas, and in some places have collected to a thickness of 6 feet. At the bottoms of freshwater lakes they may form an almost pure mud of fine texture, while on the floor of deep oceans there is an ooze of diatoms which have been separated from the calcareous shells by their greater powers of resistance to solution by salt water.
Fig. 121.—Diatom showing the Double Siliceous Coat
There are enormous numbers of species now living, and of fossils from the Tertiary and Upper Mesozoic rocks; but, strangely enough, though so numerous and so widely distributed, both now and in these past periods, they have not been found in the earlier rocks.
In one way the diatoms differ from ordinary fossils. In the latter the soft tissues of the plant have been replaced by stone, while in the former the living cell was enclosed in a siliceous case which does not decompose, thus resembling more the fossils of animal shells.
Bacteria are so very minute that it is impossible to recognize them in ordinary cases. In the matrix of the best-preserved fossils are always minute crystals and granules that may simulate bacterial shapes perfectly. Bacillus and Micrococcus of various species have been described by French writers, but they do not carry conviction.
As was stated at the beginning of the chapter, from all the fossils of all the lower-plant families we cannot learn much of prime importance for the present purpose. Yet, as the history of plants would be incomplete without mention of the little that is known, the foregoing pages have been added.