OPEN LETTERS. 
Identification of fossil leaves. 
After reading the article “On the validity of some fossil species of 
Liriodendron,” which I was kindly permitted to see in manuscript, I 
s 
a personal controversy and do not care to begin now. : 
The author, has, however, given evidence of such remarkable fail- 
] : 
first place the mission of the paleobotanist is to describe and 
depict the fragments of vegetation with which he has to deal, in order 
“ : ; 
— 
is an affi s, m free to add t 
recently collected on Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard, will demon- 
strate the relationship even more clearly and, when described and 
published, will render any reference or reply to the foregoing papet 
unnecessa 
g 
because it is clearly the same species as the leaf described by a. 
under that name from Greenland. ARTHUR Houck, Columbia Col 
lege, New A 
[332] 
