410 :\IESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 



Tyson ciillcd it so. and not only the llora but the estuaiiiie character of many of 

 the beii.s agreed with tliis. 



And ill another letter written ten days later announcing the ship- 

 ment of the trunk he adds: 



As to the supposed Wealden equivalency of the beds, I have found no prmted 

 reference. Wlien I was in Baltimore in 1869 I was delivering some lectures at the 

 Peabody Institute on tiie origin of coal, and naturally incjuired as to fossil plants. 

 Tyson, whose acquaintance T had made sometime before, showed me his cycads 

 and took me to see the excavations for iron ore, in which we found some conifei'ous 

 wood. I saw no other fossils, but heard that leaves had been found. The cycads 

 and the structure of the conifers sufficed to show that the beds were probably Meso- 

 zoic and newer than the Richmond coal field, at that time, I think, regarded as 

 Jurassic. Hence it was natural to regard them as ecjuivalent to the Wealden, and 

 probably older than the marine greensands farther north. That was my conclu- 

 sion from the little that I saw, and was so entered in my notes at the time; but I 

 do not think I published anything, though I may have referred to it incidentally 

 in later publications. 



He was quite right in saying that the trunk sent was different from 

 that shown in the photograph. The latter was a view of one of the type 

 specimens of Cycadeoidea marylandica, while the former belongs to my 

 C. Bibbinsi. I described the trinik fully in June of the same year and 

 had two views prepared, which are reproduced in the present paper on 

 PI. LXXXII. (See pp. 416, 456.) 



While on the subject of Mr. Tyson's specimens, I will mention two 

 other cases which are certain and a third doubtful case. Sometime 

 after Doctor Newberry's death Dr. Arthur Hollick found among his 

 effects an unmounted photograph of a cycad, and l^y the side of it three 

 large pieces of petrified wood. On the JDack of the print was written in 

 Doctor Newberry's handwriting: "Cycadeoidea, Trias ? Maryland. From 

 Professor Tyson." Knowing that I was at the time making a special study 

 of Maryland cycads, Doctor Hollick kindly sent it to me. It is reproduced 

 in this paper on PI. LXXXI. The trunk can be readily recognized as the 

 type figured b}' Professor Fontaine on pi. clxxx of his Potomac Flora, 

 but so tilted as to show considerable of the l^ase. It is the Johns Hop- 

 kins University type No. 1 (Cycadeoidea lyiarylandica) . (See p. 414.) 



In one of Mr. F. B. Meek's volumes of " Miscellaneous Papers," bound 

 together and now in the liljrary of the National Museum, containing Mr. 

 Tyson's second report inscribed by him to Mr. Meek, there is a photo- 



