FLORA OF THE TRINITY FORMATION. 327 



Texas, but the locality seems to correspond to the Upper Cross Timbers, 

 and the Trinity sands occur through the general region described. The 

 description of the wood is wholly fanciful and only reflects the prevalent 

 belief that the petrified wood belongs to the same trees that now grow in 

 the region where it occurs. Kennedy goes on to say that personally he 

 believes the wood to be only such living trees incrusted with calcareous 

 [sic] matter in springs and mineral waters, all of which only emphasizes 

 the undeveloped state of the science of fossil plants and the progress that 

 has been made during the six decades that have elapsed since this was 

 written, at least in this country. 



Only a short time after this an eminent German geologist and 

 paleontologist. Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, came to America and joined the 

 little German colony that settled at New Braunfels, now the county seat 

 of Comal County, Tex. He immediately commenced making geological 

 observations in Texas and published his first paper in 1846." He 

 describes the fossil wood and admits that it is not that of the oak, but 

 thinks that it is dicotyledonous and not coniferous, although from Cre- 

 taceous strata. In his second paper* he says: 



When I wrote mj" former paper I was not sure about the formation in which 

 this fossil wood was originally deposited. I am now perfectly convinced that it is 

 derived from Cretaceous strata, having afterwards found pieces of it among Creta- 

 ceous fossils at localities where for hundreds of miles around there are none other 

 but Cretaceous strata, and no traces of diluvium or drift are met with. 



In 1849 Roemer published in German a popular work on Texas, '^ in 

 which he deals with the fossil wood somewhat more fully, both in the 

 text (pp. 229, 230) and in the appendix (pp. 369, 370). He had sent 

 specimens of it to Prof. H. R. Goppert, in Breslau, who had studied its 

 internal structure and found some of it dicotyledonous and some conif- 

 erous. The latter he referred to the genus Pinites. A large Cretaceous 

 fauna is described in the appendix. In his map the Cretaceous is shown 

 to occupy a wide belt northwest of a line which is nearly a prolongation 

 in both directions of one drawn through the cities of Avistin and San 

 Antonio. 



« A sketch of the geology of Texas, by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer: Ara. Journ. Sci., 2d ser., Vol. II, November, 

 1846, pp. 358-36.5. 



b Op. cit.. Vol. VI, November, 1848, pp. 21-28. 



<^ Texas. Mit Riicksicht auf deutsche Answanderung und die physischen Verhiiltnisse des Landes nach 

 eigener Beobachtung geschildert, von Dr. Ferdinand Roemer. Mit einem naturwischenschaftlichen Anhange. 

 Bonn, 1849, 464 pp. 8°. Topographisch-geognostische Karte. 



