The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two. VIII. The Literature of Science. § 38. Berkeley. Plant pathology was, also, coming to the fore, and Miles Joseph Berkeley was establishing a permanent reputation as a systematic mycologist. He has, indeed, been called the originator and founder of plant pathology, and was the first to recognise the economic importance of many fungoid plant diseases. His work on Phytophthora infestans—the potato fungus—(1846) is still a classic.   110   Another branch of science, of less economic but of more academic interest, was plant palaeontology, which, under Witham, Binney and Williamson—the last named was elected, in 1851, professor of natural history, anatomy and physiology at the newly-founded Owens college, Manchester—was rapidly forging ahead, at any rate in the north of England. Here, chiefly, the foundations were being laid for the very remarkable advances which have been made in this branch of the subject since the last quarter of the nineteenth century.   111