316 MEiSOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 



l3ut most of them more or less fragmentar_y. The value of these fragments 

 to science is, however, very great, and on my return I succeeded in induc- 

 ing Professor Marsh to authorize Mr. Wells to finish the work he had 

 begun b}'' gathering them all up and shipping them to New Haven. This 

 was done and the specimens arrived early in 1899. Meantime, in Novem- 

 ber, 1898, I went for the fourth time to New Haven and determined a col- 

 lection of 44 specimens that Mr. Wells had sent since my last visit in June. 

 It was then that I explained to Professor Marsh what I had seen in Octol^er 

 and that he instructed Mr. Wells to send him all the cycads he could find. 

 Knowing that these were coming I purpose^ left the work unfinished, 

 certain that the new material would not only afford a much broader l^asis 

 for the stud}^ of the collections, but would complete many of the imperfect 

 trunks by supplying the missing parts. In this I was not mistaken. The 

 great collection happil}^ reached New Haven and was unpacked a month or 

 more before the fatal illness of Professor Marsh, so that he was al^le to 

 contemplate it in all its magnitude. 



As stated in my paper on the flora of the Black Hills (p. 623), Pro- 

 fessor Marsh had persuaded Mr. George R. Wieland to undertake the 

 microscopic study of the fossil cycads in the Yale Museum, and he began his 

 investigations near the beginning of 1899. He commenced publishing in 

 March of that year, and four of his contributions, all based on the Black 

 Hills material, have thus far appeared." The series will doubtless be 

 continued, and a monograph is announced. The work on the internal 

 structure of American fossil cycads is thus fairly begun, the results are 

 already highly important, and the possibilities seem practically unlimited. 

 On May 1, 1900, at the request of Dr. C. E. Beecher, I again visited New 

 Haven and resumed the work of elaborating the cycad material. The 

 collections now numbered over 700 specimens, but more than half of these 

 consisted of the smaller fragments gathered from the field by Mr. Wells, 

 who had previously neglected to send them, not supposing them worth 

 preserving. I had emphasized their importance to Professor Marsh, and, 

 as above stated, he had ordered their shipment. None of them are wholly 

 without scientific value, especially in the stud)^ of their internal structure, 

 and many of them were found to be the missing parts of broken trunks 



« A study of some American Fossil C3'cads, b}' George R. Wieland. Pt. I. Am. Jur. Sci., 4th ser.,Vol. 

 Vn,May, 1899, pp. 219-226, pi. ii-iv; Pt. 11, ibid., April, 1S99, pp. 30.5-30S, pi. vii; Pt. Ill, ibid., May, 1899, 

 pp. 383-391, pi. viii-x; Pt. IV, ibid., Vol. XI, June, 1901, pp. 423-436. 



