42 Reviews— Geological Survey of New Jersey. 
III.—E. W. Berry. I.—A Brier Sxerca or Fossiz Pants. 
IJ.—Tur Frora or tHe Crirrwoop Crays. Annual Report, 
Geological Survey, New Jersey, for 1905, part uu, pp. 99-156, 
with 8 plates and 7 text-figures. Trenton, N.J., 1906. 
A this sketch of fossil plants Mr. Berry touches very briefly upon 
a number of points connected with the study of paleeobotany, 
such as methods of preservation, early views regarding fossils, and 
leaf venation. Perhaps the most interesting sections are those devoted 
to generalized ancestral forms and the Recapitulation Theory. 
Mr. Berry speaks of certain mid-Cretaceous fossils, such as those 
referred to the genus Sassafras, known only as leaf-impressions, as 
being synthetic types, combining characters common to other genera. 
We agree with the author’s remark that ‘‘it is hardly safe to draw too 
definite conclusions from the evidence of one set of organs, such as 
leaves.” As illustrations of the truth of the Recapitulation Theory, 
which Mr. Berry applies in a whole-hearted manner to the 
Angiospermous leaf-impressions, fossils assigned to Liriodendron and 
Myrica are discussed, and the leaves of the earliest representatives of 
these genera are found to resemble the ‘juvenile’ foliage of seedlings 
of the living plant. 
In this connection we may repeat a word of warning. It may be 
taken as a general rule, to which the exceptions are but few, that it 
is not safe, we might almost say not scientific, to refer a fossil 
Angiospermous plant to a living genus solely on the evidence of leaf- 
impressions; an axiom which is too often lost sight of by those who 
devote attention to the difficult study of such plant remains. 
This bright and interesting sketch concludes with a brief review of 
the succession of geological floras, especially in the United States. 
Some of the statements made are now hardly accepted, as, for 
instance, the proof of the occurrence of ‘“ ferns (Filicales) and horsetail 
rushes (Equisetales)?’? in the Cambrian and Silurian rocks, the 
Dawsonian theory that the Hydropterideze were vastly abundant in 
the Devonian period, which the author refers to in a guarded manner, 
and the view, now no longer tenable though current as recently as 
the publication of this sketch, that the Carboniferous and Permian 
Fern-like plants were largely referable to the family Marattiacez. 
The interesting diagram included to illustrate the distribution of plants 
in geological time, and what is known as to their phylogeny, leaves 
one with the impression that the author holds that, in many cases, 
plant life was more varied and abundant at the end of a geological 
period than at the beginning, a theory which it would be exceedingly 
difficult to prove. 
The second paper contains a description of the Cretaceous flora of 
the Cliffwood Clays of New Jersey. ‘The most interesting specimen 
figured is a new Fern-like plant, apparently in the fertile state, for 
which the new genus and species Heterofilicites anceps is proposed, but 
there appears to be some doubt as to whether the sporangia-like bodies 
are really fructitications. 
Among the other leaf-impressions described and figured are new 
species referred to Picea, Platanus, Liriodendron, and Sterculva. 
i. AGING GAG 
