98 The Ottawa Naturalist. [July 



THE CANADIAN SPPXIES OF THE GENUS WHITTLE- 

 SEYA AND THEIR SYSTEMATIC RELATIONS. 



By David Whitk. 

 SOURCES and supposed AGE OF THE MATERIALS. 



The discovery ot the g"enus Whillleseya in the Upper Pahe- 

 ozoic of Nova Scotia was announced by Dr. H. M, Ami, oi" the 

 Geological Survey of Canada, in the August number of this journal 

 for 1900. This well marked PaliEOZoic plant type has been found 

 only within a very limited vertical range, and it has hitherto been 

 regarded as characteristic of a stage in the Meso-carboniferous of 

 North America. The occurrence, therefore, of the genus in the 

 shales of the Riversdale formation, concerning the age of which 

 there is at present great difference of opinion, is a matter of palffi- 

 ontological importance and interest. Through the courtesy of 

 Dr. Ami and of Dr. G. M. Dawson, the late Director of the Sur- 

 vey, a series of the specimens forming the basis of the former's 

 notes has been p'aced in the writer's hands for study and com- 

 parison with the types from the Allegheny region. 



The material from Nova Scotia includes a number of speci- 

 mens collected by Dr. Ami in 1898, from the banks of the Har- 

 rington river near the boundary between Cumberland and Col- 

 chester counties, and at West Bay shore, Parrsboro', Cumberland 

 county. The fossils are said to have been gathered from the 

 Riversdale formation, a sequence reported to be several thousands 

 of feet in thickness of sandstones and shales which, on account of 

 their stratigraphic position and relation to the metamorphism in 

 the region, are regarded by the stratigraphical geologists ^ who 

 have investigated the structure and extent of the Paleeozoic form- 

 ations of this region as of undoubtedly Middle Devonian age. 



On the other hand, palaeontologists, though differing some- 

 what as to ihe stage of the fossils, are entirely agreed that the 

 rocks are Carboniferous. According to the evidence of the 

 Batrachia, Crustacea and Lamellibranchiata examined by Sir 

 William D^iwson, Professors T. R. Jones and Henry Woodward, 



1 Husjh Fletcher, Ann. Rept. Geol. Surv. Canada, 1886, vol. II, p. 64P ; 

 also Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Sci., vol. X, igoo, p. 242; also R. W. Ells, Ann, 

 Rept. Geol. Surv. Canada, vol I, 1885, p. 511:. 



