17!) 



structures to this end, and their absence in a very marked desert 

 type of plant is not to be overlooked. That the absorption of 

 water by the stem is of no very ^n-cat importance, if any, in the 

 economy of the ocotillo, may perhaps well be maintained ; while 

 on the other hand we might argue that in regions where the rain 

 is very scarce the very rapid production of foliage would be of so 

 great importance that even the little water absorbed would be 

 equally so. At any rate, the question here barely touched upon 

 is one of a host of similar ones which need elucidation by con- 

 stant study under just such special conditions as are to be found 

 in the desert. 



Tkaciikrs College, Columbia University. 



AN OLD SWAMP-BOTTOM 



By Edward W. Berry 



We all make our pilgrimage to the swamp : the lover of flowers 

 for the pink lady's -slipper, giant rhododendron, fragrant pogonia 

 and Indian tea-kettle [Sarracoiia) ; the collector for these and for 

 coptis, the sun-dew, and the ferns and sedges that haunt the in- 

 accessible tangles of verdure which no swamp ever lacks. There 

 are swamps and swamps, but all are of unfailing interest, whether 

 the pilgrim be botanist, entomologist, or merely a seeker for 

 cranberries or blueberries. They have equally their vernal and 

 autumnal coloration. In the spring, the violet and marsh-mari- 

 gold ; in the fall, the closed gentian and bidens. 



No swamp is of more interest than a fossil swamp, and it is my 

 purpose to take you on a little journey to one such — not to one 

 of those gigantic examples of buried marshes where in the far-oft 

 Carboniferous age was laid down the world's supply of coal, but 

 to the remains of one of those smaller swamps that flourished 

 during the Cretaceous and was like the many swamps that dot 

 the country at the present time, where the mosquito and h\-la 

 flourish and the magnolia blooms. 



Going back a few million years, three to five is a reasonable 

 estimate, wc come upon a time when deposition was active along 



