EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



This volume has been prepared, in its present form, under somewhat 

 peculiar circumstances. An edition of twenty-five plates, without text, was 

 printed about 1871. These were issued under the title, Illustrations of 

 Cretaceous and Tertiary Plants of the Western Territories of the United 

 States, in 1878. Subsequently a revised edition of these and forty-three 

 additional plates was published, but was withheld from distribution, await- 

 ing the completion of the text by Dr. Newberry. His sickness and subse- 

 quent death stopped further progress on the work, and much that he had 

 accomplished went for naught. Upon two sets of the plates manuscript 

 names for the figures were placed by him. One of these sets is in the 

 possession of Dr. Lester F. Ward, and the other was in Dr. Newberry's 

 library, which came into the possession of the Geological Department of 

 Columbia University after his death. From these sources I was enabled to 

 obtain a more or less complete list of the names which it was the evident 

 intention of the author to give to the figures. Most of these were found to 

 refer to descriptions previously published by Dr. Newberry, 1 or to species of 

 other writers, notably Leo Lesquereux and Oswald Heer. A number, how- 

 ever, were apparently not . referable to any published descriptions, and it 

 became necessary to examine Dr. Newberry's manuscript, in order to connect 

 these names, if possible, with his notes. A thorough search was also made 



1 Descriptions of fossil plants collected by Mr. George G-ibbs, geologist to the United States 

 Northwest Boundary Commission, under Mr. Archibald Campbell, United States Commissioner: 

 Boston Journ. Nat. Hist., Vol. VII (1863), pp. 506-594. 



Notes on the later extinct floras of North America, with descriptions of some new species 

 of fossil plants from the Cretaceous and Tertiary strata: Ann. N. Y. Lye. Nat. Hist., Vol. IX (April, 

 1868), pp. 1-76. 



Brief descriptions of fossil plants, chiefly Tertiary, from western North America: Proc. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., Vol. V, 1883 [February and March, 1883], pp. 502-514. 



