NOTES GKOI.OGICAI. AND ANTIQUARIAN 



tions, which in the dark days of Hebrew adversity pre- 

 ceded even with them that medieval Christianity which 

 science unquestionably accepts, while denounced as '' Mod- 

 ernism " by His Holiness the Pope himself, who claims 

 that even the advocates of heresy in the ancient days 

 among various Christian denominations also acquiesced in 

 the views he entertains. Well, after all, we must admit 

 the correctness of this assertion. Denial is impossible if 

 any reliance can be placed on the daily press of Canada. 



Now let us take a subject which, as far as I can see, is 

 absolutely impossible to divorce or separate from Geology — 

 Botany. It possesses an older claim to scientific investiga- 

 tion regarding the origin of plant life. This locality cer- 

 tainly possesses probably a little known but very important 

 collection of early sea plants, ranging from the Medina 

 Grey Band to the Niagara Barton's inclusive. As far as the 

 writer recollects, he called the attention of the Section to 

 this when the late Prof. Nicholson, in The Palceo7itology of 

 Ontario, expressed a doubt he entertained regarding the 

 real nature of what I believe to have been imperfect speci- 

 mens from the Clinton rocks at Hamilton. Sir W. Daw- 

 son noticed the absence of bituminous matter which he 

 expected to find in the first fossilized remains forwarded 

 and shared, I think, in the doubts of the Toronto Professor, 

 but he changed his opinion when we were subsequently 

 enabled to furnish him with better specimens than the 

 ones he received previously. 



Your collector, on submitting some Clinton forms to 

 the late Dr. James Hall, of Albany, mentioned that a few 

 Canadian Palaeobotanists had expressed doubts regarding 

 the true nature of the sea plant he described, and figured 

 under the name Buthotrephis. " Well," he remarked, 

 " they never could have seen such ones as you gave me, or 

 the ones in the side case of the museum." The writer 

 thinks the Doctor's B. gracilis may merely represent a de- 

 tached branch of a plant such as we have here in our local 



