330 abstracts: mammalogy 



PALEONTOLOGY. — The Upper Cretaceous and Eocene floras of South 

 Carolina and Georgia. Edward W. Berry. U. S. Geological 

 Survey Professional Paper 84 Pp. 200, with maps, sections, a"nd 

 29 plates.. 1914. 

 Upper Cretaceous plants are found in the Middendorf arkose member 

 of the Black Creek formation in South Carolina. This member repre- 

 sents the initial phase of littoral and perhaps partly continental deposits 

 after the widespread interval that succeeded the Lower Cretaceous. 

 The flora contains 76 species in 49 genera, 36 families, and 26 orders and 

 is believed to indicate conditions comparable with those existing in the 

 warm temperate rain-forests of the present. The flora is part of an 

 association that extends from Texas throughout the Atlantic coastal 

 plain, reappearing in the Atane beds of western Greenland. It is shown 

 to have been contemporaneous with the deposition of the upper Tusca- 

 loosa formation of the eastern Gulf area and with the Magothy formation 

 of the northern Atlantic coastal plain and with a part of the Turonian 

 stage of European geology. 



A somewhat similar but in part younger fossil flora is described from 

 the Eutaw and the basal beds of the Ripley formation in western Georgia. 

 The deposits range from littoral to marine and yield a total flora of 32 

 determinable species which indicate conditions essentially similar to 

 those mentioned for the Middendorf flora. 



A small but highly interesting flora, is described from the Congaree 

 claj's of eastern Georgia. These are of middle Eocene age and are known 

 officially as the Congaree clay member of the McBean formation of 

 the Claiborne Group. The plants indicate that the deposits are to be 

 correlated with the Lutetian stage of the Paris basin. The flora contains 

 swamp ferns (Acrostichum) of tropical affinities and several types of 

 plants of modem mangrove associations, as well as palms and numerous 

 coastal types. It is fittingly compared with the existing costal floras of 

 southern peninsular Florida and Central America and furnishes exceed- 

 ingly important data for phylogenetic speculations, as well as for the 

 elucidation of the climatic and geologic history of the Mississippi embay- 

 ment area. E. W. B. 



MAMMALOGY. — Treeshrews: An account of the inammalian family 



Tupaiidae. Marcus Ward Lyon, jr. Proceedings of the U. S. 



National Museum 45: 1-188, pis. 1-11, text figs. 1-15. November 



29, 1913. 



This extensive monograph of the insectivorous mammals included in 



the family Tupaiidae is based on an examination of about 800 specimens. 



