814 REVIEWS 
region the break in the record represented by the conventional plane 
of separation between the upper and lower divisions of the series is 
here obliterated. . . . . The little fauna is the oldest yet-described 
from Brazil.” 
That last remark reminds me that some three years ago I published 
in this journal (Vol. IV, p. 975) a notice of an article by Dr. F. Katzer 
upon “ The oldest fossiliferous beds of the Amazon region.” In that 
article Dr. Katzer claims to have found graptolites in rocks said to 
have come from the Rio Maecurti region. Since the appearance of 
that note my attention has been directed to the fact that the article in 
question contained neither names, descriptions, nor figures of such 
graptolites, and that the origin of the fossils he mentioned was not 
really known—omissions that I should have observed without assistance. 
It is a matter of painful interest to observe the great gaps of time 
between the collecting of the fossils by the Geological Commission, 
the date of Dr. Clarke’s papers, and the date on the title page of this 
belated volume of excellent work. 
We are accustomed in this country to hear more or less complaint 
about delay in the publication of government reports. But in this 
instance we may see if we will how much worse such matters might be. 
These collections were made in 1876, were placed in Dr. Clarke’s 
hands in 18(?), the paper on the Silurian fossils was finished by him 
in 1891, that upon the Devonian in 1892, and the publication appears 
toward the end of 1899 —twenty-three years after the field-work ! 
The inconvenience of this sort of thing is perhaps not as serious 
in Brazil where comparatively little is doing in science as it might be 
here or in Europe, but, like all other wrongs, sooner or later the country 
must pay for them. J. C. BRANNER. 
The Cretaceous of the Black Fills as Indicated by the Fossil Plants. 
By Lester F. Warp, with the Collaboration of Walter P. 
Jenney, William M. Fontaine, and F. H. Knowlton. Extract 
from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the U. S. Geol. Sur- 
vey, Part II. Washington, D. C., 1899. 
The results recorded in this extract are the outgrowth of a series 
of investigations beginning with the discovery of cycads in the Black 
Hills in 1893. From a study of these fossils and of their stratigraph- 
ical position, Professor Ward reached the conclusion that a part of the 
