NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



273 



FOSSIL PLANTS.* 



There are two kinds of workers to whom students are 

 especially indebted ; those who carry out original investiga- 

 tions, and those who, having a bibliographical bent, bring 

 together a summary of the work of others, and thus save endless 

 time in searching through oceans of literature for information 

 upon any particular subject in which a student may be in- 

 terested. In ' Fossil Plants,' we have the results of Prof 

 Seward's investigations, as well as a most reliable record of 

 the work of others ; consequently we are doubly indebted to 

 him. In work of this kind it is essential that a 'writer should 

 be thorough, and the enormous strides made in paleobotany 

 in recent years in all parts of the world, prevent a standard 



Williamsonia whitbiensis (after Nathorsl ; ,; nat. size). 



work being published quickly. So long ago .1- 1898, the'first 

 volume of this treatise appeared; Volume II. in 1910 ; 'Vol. 

 III. is. before us. Vol. IV. is in the press. Prof. Seward hopes 

 it will be published before the end of 1917, and the publishers 

 hope it will appear early in 1918. The first two volumes 

 have already been noticed in this journal, and excellent though 

 they were, Vol. III. is even better. 



JURASSIC PLANTS. 



In some respects it is perhaps as well Prof. Seward was 

 not able to publish the complete work in 1898 : as it is, we 

 now have a useful account of the remarkable flora of the York- 

 shire Oolites. A systematic study of some new aspects ol 

 this flora was commenced a few years ago by a Committee of 

 the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, was continued bv Mr. H. 



* Vol. [II., pp. xviii. : 656 pp. 15- net. 



1917 Sept. 1. 



