l/csqiieroux.] tt:v»'± [Jan. 5» 



collections which, transferred to the large State cabinet of Springfield, were 

 afterwards examined and determined at leisure. Some localities, like that 

 of .Morris, Grundy county, for e.\aniple, where the vegetable fragments are 

 preserved both in soft shale, and in very liard concretion.s, afforded a rare 

 opp;)rtunity for the study of a local distribution of the coal flora and also of 

 a Fc-markable exposition of its richness and luxuriance. For the con- 

 cretions there hold in preservation some of the small and soft vegetable re- 

 mains which are generally de-stroyed by a protrac.ed maceration in porous 

 materials like shale or sandstone. There were moreover at Morris some 

 private cabinets of gentlemen interested in fossil botany by the beauty of 

 the specimens obtainabk' in the vicinity, those of Jos. Even, S. S. Strong, 

 Prendel, Armstrong. These were kindly opened for mj' examination, and 

 afforded abundant materials for study. The essential results of the paleo- 

 botanical explorations in Illinois are exposed in the second and fourth vol- 

 umes of the Geological Reports of that State, and their importance may be 

 judged by the table of species, Vol. IV, p. 471, whose number amounts to 

 two hundred and twenty -six, a number which has been greatly increased 

 since then. Some of the species recognized in the flora of Morris are 

 extremely interesting, remarkable indeed for characters which had no- 

 where been recognized until then in the vegetation of coal, and which 

 therefore might be supposed to be somewhat imaginary or derived trom ob- 

 scure specimens. These, however, like Neuropteris Verbencefolia, N. 

 pach'iderma of the second volume, have been re-discovered in better speci- 

 mens, though the first were already satisfactorily determined. And this was 

 the more opportune that the first and only specimens used for exemplifica- 

 tion and belonging to Mr. Even had been lost by a fire which destroyed his 

 ■whole propert}'. This second volume also figures some peculiar species to 

 ■which is attached a double importance and significance, by their own char- 

 acters, and by their relations to types generally considered as strangers to 

 the carboniferous formations. Of these I will say something more after 

 finishing the enumeration of the means employed for increasing the amount 

 of materials serviceable for the study of the coal flora. 



While occupied with the surveys, I bad always, in pursuance of the 

 same plan, looked for every opportunity of examining local collections or 

 encouraging local researches for specimens of fossil idanis. The specimens 

 of Amherst College had been entrusted to me for determina'ion. I had 

 seen also those of Yale College, those of Prof. J. D. Dana ; determined the 

 species in the cabinet of Princeton College, and established correspondence 

 for exchanges or coinmunicalions ; among others with Mr. T. II. Clark, 

 of Newport, K. I., who had for a long time collected specimens of plants 

 from the coal of Mount ri<^pe, which by and by gave a very interesting 

 contribution to the North American coal flora. More recentlj^ a new light 

 ■was thrown into the obscure question of the vertical distribution of the coal 

 flora and upon the characters of its groups, by the communication of a 

 ■whole cabinet of fossil plants from the coal fields of Alabama, sent for de- 

 termination by the Director of that Geological Survey, Prof. Eug. A. Smith. 



