PROCEEDINGS FOR 1911 IX 
In 1856 Sir William Dawson gave the name of Prototaxites to “large 
masses of black silicified wood” which had been discovered by Sir 
William Logan in the Devonian sandstones of Gaspé. His conclusions 
that they were related to the modern group of Texas, and that “they 
may represent a leading type of forest vegetation in the Silurian and 
early Devonian,” were disputed by Carruthers, who believed them to be 
gigantic fossil seaweeds. In 1888, after this fossil had been found to 
embrace a number of distinct species, and to be of quite widespread 
occurrence in Devonian rocks, Doctor Penhallow confirmed the view 
advanced by Carruthers that “this plant is in reality an Alga, and allied 
to the Laminaria of our modern flora.” Likewise, his paper upon “The 
North American species of Dadoxylon” is a scholarly treatise which, in 
so far as is known concerning these plants, presents a clear conception 
of their true character and relations. His lucid description of the man- 
ner in which some of the marsh lands on the coast of New England have 
originated and developed supports the conclusions of other observers 
that the eastern coast line of North America is slowly subsiding. 
History, whether written upon the rocks or buried in forgotten 
volumes, was particularly attractive to Professor Penhallow. He traced 
each subject with which he busied himself as far back as accessible 
literature would permit. Two of his papers represent a complete 
4 Review of Canadian Botany” from the time of the first settlement of 
New France until 1895. The bibliography contains many interesting 
names, of which not a few are preserved in the names of familiar Ameri- 
can plants. 
In later years Doctor Penhallow turned his attention to the Creta- 
ceous and Tertiary floras of Canada, a subject of which, prior to his 
investigations, very little was known, and on which he became the lead- 
ing authority. This work is of great value, apart from the careful and 
detailed description of fossil forms which it contains, because he at- 
tempted, when possible, to trace the genetic relationship between fossil 
and modern types and to apply the collected data to a dertermination 
of stratigraphic position and succession. 
The nature of this work demanded a very intimate knowledge of 
existing varieties of woods, and, as a result of many years of studying the 
stems of fossil and extant conifers, he produced that monument of 
patient and persistent toil, his book on “North American Gymnos- 
perms.” The first part of this book is devoted to a discussion of the 
minute anatomy of the stem, the probable lines along which the various 
elements of structure have developed, and the relative durability of 
woods and their preservation as fossils. Assuming that “internal struc- 
tures must always have precedence over those of external morphology 
in questions of classification,” the second part is so arranged that, from 
Proc. 1911992; 
