NOVEMBEE 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



659 



markable, considering its remoteness, that the 

 flora should show so great a resemblance to 

 that of the English Oolitic flora or the Upper 

 Gondwana flora of India. It contains a num- 

 ber of forms identical with Arctic, Eurasiatic 

 and North American Jurassic plants and adds 

 another link in the chain of facts showing 

 the cosmopolitan character of Jurassic floras. 

 As regards the exact age of the Hope Bay 

 flora Halle concludes that there is no reason 

 to believe that it is in any considerable de- 

 gree older or younger than other floras known 

 to be of Middle Jurassic age. It seems to me 

 that if anything it is younger, especially if 

 the identiflcation of Pachypteris dalmatica is 

 certain. The resemblance of some of the Ant- 

 arctic forms to American Lower Cretaceous 

 species and the identification of Wealden 

 forms, even if somewhat uncertain, is en- 

 titled to the weight which should always be 

 given to new as against surviving types. 



Regarding Jurassic climatic conditions the 

 present contribution is of vast importance. 

 Collected in a glaciated region where there 

 are only two existing species of vascular 

 plants, it presents no intrinsic evidence that 

 would have prevented it having come from 

 England, Italy or India. There is no dwin- 

 dling of the forms or reduction of certain 

 groups as some authors have maintained to be 

 the case in high northern latitudes. This is 

 all the more interesting since the recent dis- 

 covery of the Glossopteris flora in the geo- 

 graphically near Falkland Islands shows that 

 the two floral and climatic provinces of the 

 closing Paleozoic — ^the northern or cosmopoli- 

 tan and the Glossopteris-Gangamopteris type, 

 found expression in the far south, but in terms 

 of geologic time were of short duration. 



All of Snow Hill Island and the larger 

 southwestern part of Seymour Island, as well 

 as a considerable area of the eastern part of 

 Ross Island around Cape Hamilton, which is 

 just across Admiralty Sound from Snow Hill 

 Island, is made up of Upper Cretaceous 

 strata, mostly sandstones. These contain rich 

 faunas of which the ammonites, abounding in 

 individuals and species, have been described 



by Professor Kilian of Grenoble.* The 

 Pelecypoda, Gastropoda and Annelida have 

 been described by Wilckens;" the Brachio- 

 poda by Buckman;^" the Echinoidea by Lam- 

 bert ;^^ the corals by Eelix;^^ the Foramini- 

 fera by Holland,^^ and the fishes by Smith 

 Woodward.^* Altogether these contributions 

 add an imposing array of Cretaceous fossils 

 to Antarctica. The faunas indicate an older 

 and a younger Cretaceous series of which the 

 latter is much the richer in both species and 

 individuals. The older is considered to corre- 

 spond approximately to the Ootator group of 

 India of lower Cenomanian age, while the 

 younger is Senonian and shows considerable 

 resemblance to the fauna of the Quiriquina 

 beds of southern Chile, and to marine beds in 

 southern Patagonia'^ made known by Stein- 

 mann and Wilckens. 



Impressions of a single Cretaceous plant 

 were found in a Nunatak group near the mid- 

 dle of Snow Hill Island. This has been de- 

 termined by Professor Nathorst to be close to 

 Sequoia fastigiata (Sternb.) Heer, a species 

 of conifer that is not uncommon in the 

 Cenomanian of Europe, occurring also from 

 the Cenomanian upward into the Senonian of 

 Greenland and also present in the Tusca- 

 loosa formation of Alabama. It is described 

 and figured in Halle's memoir on the Jurassic 

 flora. 



Some of the petrified woods described by 

 Gotham come from the Upper Cretaceous, but 

 as there is some doubt as to the horizons from 

 which the specimens came the Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary woods may be considered together. 



Fossil wood was found on both Seymour 



s Kilian and Eeboul, "Les Cephalopodes Neo- 

 cretaces, " Wissen. Ergeb., Band 3, Lief 6. 



9 Ihid., Lief 12. 



10 Lief 7. 



11 Lief 11. 



12 Lief 5. 



13 Lief 9. 

 "Lief 4. 



15 Wilckens has proved that the southern Pata- 

 gonian beds are synchronous with the Rosa and 

 Salamanca beds of central and northern Pata- 

 gonia and included them all in what he calls the 

 San Jorge formation. 



