Reviews — Coal Flora of tJte Netlterlands. 221 



rivers must have been very much greater then than it is now. The 

 Palaeolithic terrace of the Avon Valley is contemporaneous with the 

 Goodwood raised beach, and bears the same relation to it as 

 the modern alluvium does to the present beaches. 



The recent alluvium contains beds of peat and submerged forests 

 ■which point to a small submergence in recent times ; this is also 

 borne out by the form of the coast in Poole and Christchurch 

 harbours. The district is not rich in economic deposits. A little 

 iron has been worked and alum manufactured from alum shales, but 

 the only deposits now being worked to any extent are clays in the 

 Heading Beds, the London Clay and the Bagshot Beds which are 

 used for pottery. 



W. H. W. 



II. — Floka of the Carboniferous of the Netherlands and 

 Adjacent PtEGioNS. Yol. I : A Monograph of the Calamitks 

 of Western Europe. By Dr. R. Kidston and Dr. W. J. 

 Jongmans. Text, Part I, 1917 ; Atlas of 158 plates in 4to, with 

 Provisional Explanation of Eigures, 1915. Mededeelingen v. d. 

 Ilijksopsporing v. Delfstoffen, l^o. 7. Gravenhage. 



BY undertaking the publication of this large and exhaustive 

 monograph, of which only the first part lies before us as yet, 

 the Dutch Government has performed a signal service to Palseo- 

 botany. It is in every way entitled to take rank beside the classic 

 memoirs of Zeiller and Renault on the fossil floras of the Erench 

 coalfields, which are likewise Government publications. Most 

 unfortunately, although Britain is the richest country in Europe as 

 regards Coal-measures, no such publications have as yet been under- 

 taken by our Government, and in this respect we are far behind 

 other nations. 



The present volume relates to the genus Catamites alone. 

 Dr. Kidston and Dr. Jongmans, who are together responsible for it, 

 have had quite an exceptional experience of these fossils, and either 

 the one or the other has, we believe, actually studied practically everj^ 

 example of these plants which has been figured by previous authors, 

 except in a few cases where the types appear to have been lost. 

 They have also refigured here many of these specimens, and thus 

 cleared up many points which remained uncertain when we had to 

 rely on the original figures, which were often imperfect or indeed 

 inaccurate representations of the fossils in question. Both the text 

 and plates are thus exceptionally autlioritative. The latter consist 

 of 158 large quarto sheets in collotype, and there are eighty text- 

 figures in addition. Some of the plates are, however, identical with 

 tliose of a smaller atlas published by Jongmans and itukuk in 1913. 

 The illustrations are particularly clear and well chosen. 



At present the atlas covers a somewhat wider' field than the text, 

 for owing to the War only the first part of the latter has so far 

 been published. 



The outlook here is sj^stematic rather than morphological. The 

 strength of the treatment adopted lies in the perfection of pure 



