16 The Ottawa Naturalist. [April 



Lesquereux referred the species to the " Upper Tertiary," noting 

 that they agreed specially with the flora of Oeningen, adding : " I 

 have no doubt that the Brandon lignites belong to the same epoch 

 as the upper bed of the lignite of the Tertiary." (Geol. of Vermont, 

 p. 250. 1 86 1.) 



From 1861 to 1902, when Prof. F. H. Knowlton's paper on 

 these Vermont lignites appeared in the Torrey Bulletin of Novem- 

 ber of that year, pp. 635-641, plate 25, in which that authority 

 compared the Brandon lignite with the Pltyoxylon microporosum of 

 Schmalhausen from the Eocene of the Braunkohle of southwestern 

 Russia, naming the Vermont form: Pityoxylon microporosum Bran- 

 donianum, nothing was written or published concerning these 

 fruits. They are being studied by Dr. E. C. Jeffrey, of the Botan- 

 ical Department at Harvard at the present time, and in a forth- 

 coming Report of the State Geologist of Vermont it is confidently 

 expected that Dr. Jeffrey's views will be given publicity. Mean- 

 while, writing of the lignite, Jeffrey states that it " is a species of 

 Lauroxylon in a more or less good state of preservation. There is 

 one small piece of coniferous wood and a good deal of dicotyle- 

 denous material in which only the medullary rays show any struc- 

 ture." 



The shafts sunk through the clay to the lignites have been 



closed, as, also, the diggings for the Brandon paint in the clays 

 themselves, so that it is practically out of the question now to ob- 

 tain any more specimens of these fossil fruits from this locality. 

 Formerly, as President Hitchcock pointed out, there were out- 

 croppings of these lignites, but they have been covered up by 

 the dumps and waste materials from the clay pits. 



A paper on the " Brandon Clay " appears in the Report of the 

 State Geologist for 1903-1904, by Prof. J. B. Woodvvorth, pp. 

 166-173. and in this is given an analysis of the lignite copied from 

 the original description in 1861. 



Volatile matter 4 . 50 % 



Carbon 93 . 50 % 



Ash 2.00 % 



Total 100.00 



Prof. Woodworth then gives notes on the various collections 

 examined from the different Museums of the State of Vermont and 



