LETTER OF TRANSMISSAL. Vll 



accumulation. These plants are of course all extinct at the pres- 

 ent time, and only a few of their diminutive relatives and de- 

 scendants still survive in our ferns, rushes, and club-mosses, since 

 the Carboniferous Flora herein described lived before the day of 

 flowering plants, birds and mammals had dawned upon the earth. 

 Dr. David White, one of the most distinguished of paleobotanists, 

 has listed these interesting fossil remains in the relation which 

 they sustain to the well-known Coal beds of the State, and hence 

 as the fossil plants of each great coal horizon contain in their en- 

 tirety some types and facies not found in connection with any 

 other geological horizon, the publication in question cannot fail 

 to prove of great economic value as an aid in the correlation of 

 our numerous important coal horizons. The preparation of each 

 part of this volume by the authors of the same has required an im- 

 mense amount of careful and painstaking labor, all of which has 

 been generously donated to the State Geological Survey by the 

 distinguished authors to whom not only the Survey but all the 

 people of the State are under lasting obligations for their dis- 

 interested and most valuable services. 



This volume together with Volume V on Forestry and Wood 

 Industries of the State by A. B. Brooks, published under date of 

 February ist, 1911, will furnish a very fair account of the plant 

 life of the State, and in due time it is hoped finally to add a vol- 

 ume on the animal life of the State, as provided in the scheme of 

 general publications contemplated by the Survey. 



Very respectfully, 

 I. C. WHITE, STATE GEOLOGIST. 



Morgantown, W. Va., June ist, 1913. 



