298 FLORA OF LOWER COAL MEASURES OF MISSOURL 



ZONE OF THE MISSOURI FLORA IN THE CARBONIFEROUS BASINS OF 

 CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 



A comparison of the fossil plants from Henry County, Mazon Creek, 

 or Cannelton with the floras of the different stages of the Carboniferous in 

 the Old World coal fields reveals a series of paleontologic and chronologic 

 relations that are full of significance and interest to American students. 



One need but glance at the monographs of the floras of the various 

 sti-atigraphic groups in the Carboniferous basins of western Europe to 

 recogTiize the strong similarity between the forms familiar in our American 

 Lower Coal Measures of the Northern States and those from the Valen- 

 ciennes or Franco-Belgian Basin, the Westphalian coal field in Grermany, 

 or the Schatzlar group in Bohemia. 



The broadest, most general, and most valuable results of a compara- 

 tive study of these forms would be reached by a view of the identities, 

 affinities, and distribution, as well as the vertical range and seqiience, of 

 the plants of those European basins in which the Middle Carboniferous 

 is present combined with those of the xlmerican Lower Coal Measures. 

 But since such a study would be laborious on account of its extent, and 

 would encounter numerous difficulties in local stratigraphic correlations and 

 nomenclature, it would be much simpler to consider each basin separately, 

 regarding the succession of floras from the various levels as constituting 

 a single paleobotanic section of that basin. 



Since, however, the series in the Valenciennes Basin is more limited 

 in vertical extent, and since its flora, exhaustively elaborated with special 

 reference to the stratigraphic problems, is more readily adapted to an epit- 

 omized comparison, it ma}^ be chosen as typically illustrating the general 

 continental position of the flora under consideration. 



In his admirable monograph of the fossil flora of the Valenciennes 

 Basin,^ M. Zeiller divides the terranes on the basis of the floral characters 

 into three well-marked zones, viz: 1. The lower zone, or zone of Vicoigne, 

 represented at numerous points in the horizons of Annoeulin and Vicoigne, 

 Departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, and populated with Sphenopteris 



'Etudes des gites min^raiix de la France. PubliiJes sous les auspices de M. le Miuistre des 

 travans publics par le Service do topographies souterraines. Bassin houiller de Vallencieunes. 

 Description de la tlore fossile, par K. Zeiller, Ingeuienr en chef des mines. Text, Paris, 1888, 

 pp. 1-731, 4-. Atlas, 1886, pp. i-vi, pi. i-xciv, 4-. 



