QA THE FLORA OF THE AMBOY CLAYS. 
Cretaceous period our continent had remained above the ocean level; but 
it has been shown recently that considerable areas of North America are 
occupied by sediments deposited from the Cretaceous sea before the date 
of the Dakota formation, and that on the northwestern coast, on Queen 
Charlotte Island, and in the Shasta group in California we have accumula- 
tions of sediment that took place before the Dakota sandstones. Mr. R. 'T. 
Hill and Dr. C. A. White have demonstrated that a considerable portion 
of the State of Texas is underlain by rocks that are the equivalent of the 
Neocomian or Lower Cretaceous of the Old World. Very recently, too, 
Sir William Dawson has found in the fresh-water coal-bearing deposits of 
western Canada fossil plants identical with some from the Kome group or 
Lower Cretaceous of Greenland; and a much larger collection of fossil 
plants obtained by the writer from the coal basin of the Falls of the 
Missouri in Montana, collected by Mr. R. 8S. Williams, contains many 
Kootanie or Lower Cretaceous plants, and, what is of still greater interest, 
a number of species that have been described by Professor Fontaine from 
the Potomac group of Virginia. Thus the conclusions of Professor Fon- 
taine as to the Wealden age of the Potomac are strikingly confirmed. 
His arguments in favor of this view were that the Potomac flora was most 
like that of the Wealden of Europe, a few of the species being apparently 
identical, while it had nothing in common with any other flora known. To 
this I ventured to add the suggestion that it could hardly be Jurassic, as 
claimed by some writers, since in no part of the world had angiosperm 
plants been found in the Jurassic, though in Europe the Jurassic rocks 
had yielded great numbers of plants and the flora had been carefully 
studied. Now the finding of species identical with those of the Potomae 
in the Great Falls basin, and with them plants found in the Kootanie of 
Canada and the Kome deposits of Greenland, seems to place the question 
beyond doubt. 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FLORA, 
It is evident that it is yet too early finally to review and discuss the 
botanical character and relations of the flora of the Amboy Clays. I have 
now before me as I write 156 species of plants that have been described; 
