TERTIARY FLORA OF CHILE; 75 



The great bulk of the species recorded from this region 

 as noted above have been identified by Engelhardt. He de- 

 serves great credit for the vast amount of recent material 

 which he evidently consulted in reaching his identifications, 

 which, except for a tendency to multiply species, are usually 

 to be relied upon. His descriptions are brief and he does 

 not fully discuss the comparative relations of the forms, nor 

 is any very satisfactory attempt made to formulate the con- 

 clusions which may be legitimately deduced from such a 

 study, and which are the real results that make paleontolog- 

 ical science really worth while. 



For this reason it has seemed profitable to assemble this 

 flora in one paper and discuss its bearing upon botanical and 

 geological history as fully as the facts warrant, even though 

 my own collections add few new species to the flora. I had 

 hoped before visiting the region that it would be possible 

 to make detailed studies of the stratigraphic position of the 

 invertebrates and florules associated with the different coal 

 seams, but I found that such an investigation to yield the 

 desired facts would have to be continued over months if 

 not years. 



Such a study must wait until it can be solved by local 

 scientists. Eventually no doubt the coal companies will 

 realize the necessity of employing geologists as well as min- 

 ing engineers. Meanwhile there are the admirable geological 

 studies of Briiggen for this district, already mentioned, which 

 constitute a basis for future more detailed work. It may 

 well be doubted if the seams of the different collieries can 

 ever be satisfactorily correlated except by paleontological and 

 especially paleobotanical methods, and even this method may 

 fail since in some places the coals lack unclerclays and roof- 

 ing shales and ^are hence without identifiable plants, as was 

 particularly the case at Colico. 



I have had the advantage of personally collecting the 

 material and studying its relations to the marine fossiliferous 

 horizons. I have also visited the three main botanic provin- 



