24 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



ture and distribution of living and fossil species. He 

 refers to the occurrence of several genera and species 

 from the Tertiary Paris Basin, the Trias of the Alps and 

 Silesia, and from other geological formations. A few 

 years subsequent to the appearance of Gumbel's mono- 

 graph, Munier-Chalmas l made out a clear case for 

 the removal of these so-called foraminifera to a new class 

 of calcareous algae to which he gave the name of Siphonece 

 Verticillatce. In this class he included fifty genera ranging 

 from the Trias to the present day, all characterised by 

 consisting of a simple or dichotomously branched frond with 

 a tubular unicellular axis olivine; off verticils of branches. 

 A useful account of these important plants will be found in 

 Solms-Laubach's Fossil Botany ; 2 his critical remarks 

 carry the weight of an authority on recent calcareous algae. 



The recent researches of Bertrand and Renault point to 

 the operation of simple forms of algal life in the produc- 

 tion of such carbonaceous deposits as the boghead of Autun, 

 Scotland and other districts ; reference was made to the 

 work of these authors in the first number of " Science 

 Progress ", 3 



Note. — Since writing this article my attention has been drawn to a 

 recent paper by Wohrmann (Alpine and Ausseralpine Trias) in the Neues 

 Jahrbuch, bd. ii., heft i, 1S94, p. 1. The author lays stress on the im- 

 portant share which algae have undoubtedly had in the formation of thick 

 masses of limestone and dolomite rocks ; the Codiaceae and Siphonese are 

 the families which have been chiefly concerned in the building of these 

 Triassic strata. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



BLEICHER. (i) Sur la structure micmscopique du mineral de fer 

 Oolithique de Lorraine. Compt. Rend., vol. cxiv., 1892, p. 

 590. (2) Sur la structure microscopique des Oolithes du 

 bathonien et du bajocien de Lorraine. Compt. Rend., vol. 

 cxiv., 1892, p. 1 138. 



1 Munier-Chalmas. 2 Solms-Laubach, p. 37. 



3 "Science Progress," vol. i., No. 1, p. 60. 



