406 MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 



ck}^ beds, but always out of a more or less sandj- material, usually from 

 sand beds or beds of ferruginous arenaceous shale or lithified sand. 



The entire collection of cycads in the possession of the Woman's 

 College was shipped to the National Museum in April, 1894, and work 

 was begun on them soon after. 



Preparatory to mj- general studies in the cycads of the United States 

 I prepared during the early part of 1894 a revision of the genus Cycadeoi- 

 dea, to which the American forms thus far found all belonged." This 

 paper went to press before I felt authorized to make any statement of 

 Mr. Bibbins's discoveries, and I could only mention those of Tyson and 

 give the synonymy of the one species thus far named and called Tysonia 

 marylancUca by Fontaine, which becomes Cycadeoidea marylandica in' 

 the revision of Capellini and Solms-Laubaeh. 



In July, 1894, I commenced to work in earnest on the Maiyland 

 cycads, describing the material. Photographs were made and sections 

 cut. Several of the smaller trunks were cut through the center and the 

 fresh faces polished. This part of the work was directed by Dr. F. H. 

 Knowlton. 



^ Mr. Bibbins's method of collecting the cycads, as has been seen, 

 was unique and might be regarded by some as unscientific; but it was 

 effective. I was much struck with his method as pecuharly adapted 

 to such a case, and I regarded it as from this point of view eminently 

 scientific. It was to make this method known and to give a brief historical 

 account of the discovery of cycads in the Maryland beds that I prepared 

 a paper ^' on the subject, in which I described Mr. Bibbins's method as 

 follows : 



Instead of undertaking a hopeless and aimless quest, as has been done by 

 geologists and collectors in the past, he chose to avail himself of the knowledge of 

 the inhabitants of the districts in which the cycads were believed to occur. Sup- 

 ported by the Woman's College, which furnished him the means of transportation 

 and met the small expense of his work, including an occasional four hoire to some 

 needy farmer or miner who possessed information of great value, and usually gave 

 it freely, he proceeded to visit the houses of the native population, and placing 

 himself on a level with their powers of imderstanding, he was able to interrogate a 



« Fossil cycadean trunks of North America, with a revision ot the genus Cycadeoidea Buckland: Proc. 

 Biol. Soc. Washington, Vol. IX, April 9, 1894, pp. 7.5-88. 



'j Recent discoveries of cycadean trunks in the Potomac formation of Maryland: Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, 

 Vol. XXI, New York, July, 1894, pp. 291-299. 



