APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX No. I. 



Description of Fossil Plants from tlie Chinese Coal-Bearing Rochs. 

 By J. S. Newberry, M. D. 



Cleveland, Ohio, September 25tli, 1865. 

 Raphael Pumpelly, Esq. 



Dear Sir : The fossil plants you were kind enough to submit to me for examination, though few in 

 number and somewhat fragmentary, have proved to be of very special interest, since they supply the 

 necessary data for determining, approximately, the age of the strata from which they were taken ; 

 and rather unexpectedly prove a large part of the great coal fields of China to be of Mesozoic age. 



This conclusion is based on the entire absence of Carboniferous plants from the collection ; and the 

 presence of well-marked Cycads — species of Podozamites and Plerozamites, closely allied to, if not 

 identical with, some heretofore found in Europe and America. 



I give below, such descriptions of the several species contained in the collection, as could be framed 

 from the somewhat meagre material submitted to me. Future observations, made upon a larger 

 number of more perfect specimens, will be necessary before questions of specific identity or difference 

 can be definitively settled — but it is scarcely probable that any facts, or specimens hereafter to be 

 obtained, will require, modification of the view — that the coal basins which you visited are all Meso- 

 zoic and not Carboniferous: 



We have, of course, no right to assume from the interesting facts your explorations have brought 

 to light, that no Carboniferous coal exists in China, for it may very well happen, that as in our own 

 country, coal seams of economical value, but of different ages, will be found there, at points not greatly 

 removed from each other. But geologists will not fail to be deeply interested in the fact that so large 

 portions of the coal basins of China, including beds of both anthracite and bituminous coal — worked 

 for hundreds of years, probably the oldest coal mines in the world — are wholly excluded from the 

 Carboniferous formation. So large is this coal-bearing area, indeed, that when joined to the Triassic, 

 Cretaceous, and Tertiary coals of North America, they quite overshadow the Carboniferous coals of 

 Europe and the Mississippi valley, and suggest the question, whether the name given to the formation 

 which includes the most important European strata, has not been somewhat hastily chosen. 



Another interesting feature in the fossil plants under consideration is the reappearance, at the far 

 distant points from whence they come, of genera so well known in European and American geology 

 — and the entire absence of the species of Phylotheca, Glossopteris, etc. — which have made the Indian 

 and Australian coal floras so puzzling to the palaeontologist. There are fragments of a new generic 

 form — probably a Cycad — in the collection, and some obscure specimens that may represent other 

 plants new to science, but the Pecopteris, Sphenopteris, Podozamites, Pterozamites, &c., have a very 

 familiar look ; and in their resemblance to well known forms, give fresh evidence of the monotony of 

 the vegetation of the globe, previous to the introduction of the angiospermous forests of the Creta- 

 ceous epoch. 



Whether the strata which have furnished these plants should be considered Triassic or Jurassic, 

 remains to be determined by future observations, as the fossils as yet obtained can hardly be considered 

 sufficient for the solution of that question. 



From the "Kwei basin" we have numerous pinnae of a species of Podozamites, undistinguishable 

 from one found by Prof. Emmons in North Carolina, in strata now generally regarded as Triassic ; 



(119) 



