332 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Some time has been devoted to the study of the vertebrate fauna dis- 

 covered at Vero, Florida, in association with human bones and artifacts. 



As regards the final report, some hundreds of pages of manuscript 

 have been prepared. 



During the year Dr. Hay pubUshed a few papers pertaining to the 

 subject he is studying. They are Usted on page 40 of this volume. 



Wieland, G. R., Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Associate in 

 Paleontology. (For previous reports see Year Books Nos. 2-4, 6-9, 1 1-15.) 



The first half of the year was devoted to South American field work. 

 This began with a study of the Rhsetic of the Andine front ranges south- 

 west and westerly from Mendoza, Argentina. To the fossil plants 

 there secured, supplementary collections were courteously added by 

 the Argentine Geological Survey. A complete section through the 

 Jurasso-Cretaceous of Neuquen, in latitude 40°, between the Pata- 

 gonian plateau and the Andes, was examined for plant material. The 

 main section was made in the valley of the Picun Leufu, between Cabo 

 Alarcon on the Rio Limay and the ChaUl Mountain, but various side- 

 trips were included. It has long been known that a great development 

 of fresh-water Mesozoic strata, from 5,000 to 10,000 feet in thickness, 

 occurs in this region, although aside from the invertebrates of the lesser 

 marine interpolations few fossils are recorded from the eastern flanks 

 of the Andes. It seemed from the reported constitution of the beds 

 that much petrified material could be found — if not cycadeoids, at 

 least the stems of the contemporaneous conifers. This proved to be 

 the fact. Especially in the Jurassic sediments of Neuquen, the well- 

 conserved stems of conifers are abundant in many horizons. The 

 possibilities of collection are great, and if cycadeoids of the large- 

 stemmed types existed in the southern hemisphere they must occasion- 

 ally have been conserved and will sooner or later be found. A good 

 coniferous-stem collection was secured and is now being sectioned. 

 Taken with the few forms described in recent years from Antarctica, 

 it must include sufficient variety of species to greatly extend our knowl- 

 edge of culminant coniferous forest distribution in mid-Mesozoic time. 

 The study of this new material supplements thus the cycadeoid-stem 

 investigation announced as already under way last year. 



Partly due to a certain lack of strata with well-conserved plants, 

 and partly because of fortune afield, no opportunity was had to extend 

 previous work on Liassic imprints; but incidentally nearly the entire 

 eastern limit of the Argentine Araucaria imhricata forest was examined 

 with care — particularly all round the ChaUl, westerly toward Lago 

 Alumine and along the valley of the Cataluin to the southern boundary, 

 with later observation of the Chilean development. Reference to this 

 pure-stand climax forest of ancient type has already been made in 

 volume II of American Fossil Cycads. It is of economic significance 



