Reviews. 



Zeiller's Flora of the Carboniferous Basin of Heraclea: An Illustra- 

 tion of Paleozoic Pla?it Distribution. 



At a meeting of the Biological Society of Washington in November 

 1897, the writer exhibited a small number of specimens of Carbonifer- 

 ous plants from Asia Minor, and called especial attention to the precise 

 agreement in detail of several of the species with the corresponding 

 types in our American Coal Measures. Particular emphasis was 

 laid on the remarkable geographical distribution of plant species in 

 Middle Carboniferous time, as to which the material in hand con- 

 stituted new evidence. This striking agreement inexact form between 

 the American and Asiatic species could not fail to arouse in paleo- 

 botanists the keenest interest in the publication of the results of the 

 study of the southeastern flora by Professor Zeiller, to whose courtesy 

 the writer was indebted for the above mentioned specimens. 



Professor Zeiller's study of the Carboniferous flora of Heraclea 1 

 (Eregli) is an admirable example of stratigraphic paleobotany. To the 

 stratigrapher who is unacquainted with the progress made of late years 

 in the differentiation and recognition of the various Carboniferous 

 floras of the Old World, and of their utility as means of correlation, it 

 is an instructive illustration. To paleontologists this close, critical 

 work is especially valuable for the light it throws on the areal distribu- 

 tion of identical species and on the identity and regularity in sequence 

 of the floral associations characteristic of the several stages. 



The fossil plant material, chiefly collected by M. Ralli, was 

 obtained from several isolated areas in two of which the structure is 

 particularly complicated, the terranes being diversely and frequently 

 faulted, or even shattered. The collections from these areas are found 

 by Zeiller to embrace 122 species which, when grouped by localities, 

 very distinctly indicate three stages of the Carboniferous, which M. 

 Ralli also is able to recognize stratigraphically in portions of the 



'Etude sur la flore fossile du bassin houiller d'Heraclee (Asie Mineure). R. Zeil- 

 ler, Mem. Soc. geol. Fr., Paleontologie, mem. 21, Paris, 1899, 91 pp., 6 pi. 



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