191 1.] ATLANTIC AND GULF COASTAL PLAIN. 308 



So far as I know I was the first paleobotanist to explore the 

 south Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain and that exploration has only 

 just begun. Professors Fontaine and Ward visited the region and 

 collected a few Cretaceous plants a score of years ago. Professor 

 Lesquereux a generation and a half ago described a few Eocene 

 plants collected by Professor Hilgard in Mississippi and by Professor 

 SafTord in Tennessee, and Doctors Knowlton and Hollick have iden- 

 tified various small collections made by others in different parts of 

 this vast area. 



With the exception of fragments of the petrified stems of con- 

 ifers, palms and dicotyledons the plant-remains are in the form of 

 impressions, mostly of foliage, but with a goodly sprinkling of fruits 

 and seeds, and in some few cases even flowers are preserved. 



While the oscillations of the Gulf area have been numerous they 

 have been, as I have just mentioned, inconsiderable in amount, only 

 a few hundred feet at most, and the coastal region has uniformly 

 been one of slight relief. The various floras show a complete 

 absence of upland types. This is in striking contrast to the Euro- 

 pean older Tertiary floras. The only large area of the globe which 

 has been thoroughly studied, Europe, was far less stable than this 

 region in Tertiary times and lying much farther toward the pole was 

 subjected to the rigors of Pleistocene conditions whose influence 

 never reached our southern states. 



The object of the writer's work may be classed under three 

 heads : ( i ) To determine the correlation of the various Tertiary for- 

 mations particularly in the upper portion of the Mississippi embay- 

 ment where marine fossils are largely absent, (2) To obtain data 

 regarding the physical conditions under which the various floras 

 flourished, (3) To accumulate biological data regarding the geo- 

 graphical distribution, specific difl"erentiation and evolution of the 

 Tertiary floras. 



Thus one of the principal phases of the study for the geologist 

 might be embraced under the term paleoecolog)\ The methods 

 include a study of the old shore lines of the dift'erent epochs, of the 

 character of the sediments and their genesis, of the contained 

 animals and plants, and the alternative climatic and edaphic factor.s 

 which their grouping may indicate. 



