S4 



OANADIAH FOSSaS. 



Geological Surveys of regions in which the Carboniferous system is largely 

 developed, they have commanded more attention than elsowheie. The State 

 Surveys of Pennsylvania and of Illinois deserve especial mention for their 

 attention to the Flora of the Carboniferous rocks. With regard to the 

 special subject of the present Report, its value depends mostly on the 

 utility of comparing the Carboniferous plants with those of older periods. 



Though many valuable contributions to the Natural History of the 

 plants older than the Carboniferous have been published in the proceed- 

 ings of learned Societies and elsewhere, the present is, I believe, the first 

 Official Report ever published on these ancient forms of vegetable life, 

 and the first attempt to give a complete view of the oldest Flora of any 

 large region of the earth. It is therefore not merely an important con- 

 tribution to Canadian Geology, but as the Devonian Flora has many fea- 

 tures in common over all the world, it will be of service in every country 

 where these rocks occur, and I anticipate that it may aid in the settlement 

 of important geological questions in very distant portions of the world. 



With reference to the value of the subject in this country, I need only 

 refer to the mistakes which have been made in confounding the Devonian 

 with Carboniferous rooks in the search for coal. I may instance the anti- 

 cipations which were excited as to the discovery of coal at Perry, in Maine, 

 at several places in Gasp6, and in the vicinity of St. John, New Bruns- 

 wick, and which in some of these places led to considerable expenditures 

 of money ; or the disputes as to the Devonian or Carboniferous age of the 

 celebrated deposit of Albertite at Hillsborough, New Brunswick. These 

 and similar difficulties could all have been readily settled by a reference 

 to the evidence of fossil plants ; and with the help of this Report, more 

 especially if it should be followed by similar publications on the plants of the 

 several stages of the Carboniferous, there will be no necessity for such 

 errors in future. 



Thus an important step will be gained in marking out the limits of the 

 coal-bearing rocks, and in avoiding the errors which may arise from con- 

 founding their characteristic fossils with those of the older strata in which 

 productive coal beds have not yet been found. 



Further, the comparisons which can now be made between the vegetar- 

 bio inhabitants of the world in two principal ages of its older history, and 

 these ages both very rich in fossil plants, will serve to throw much light on 

 the questions now so much agitated with reference to the introduction and 

 extinction of species in geological time. To enter on such discussions 

 would be out of place here, but I propose elsewhere to take them up some- 

 what fully, using the facts of the present memoir as a basis whereon to rest 

 my conclusions. 



