E. Petitot on the Athabasca District. 27 



foliage as they possess, are also allied, by the form of their fructi- 

 fication, to the Rhizocarps, and not to ferns, as some palaeo-botanists 

 have incorrectly supposed.* 



I do not suppose that the facts above stated furnish any positive 

 proof that the abundant Sporangites of the Erian period were the 

 fructification of Rhizocarps, but they establish a certain probabil- 

 ity of this, and invite to farther researches. If it should prove 

 that these humble plants, now so insignificant, culminated in the 

 palaeozoic age, and occupied the extensive submerged flats of that 

 period with an abundant vegetation, producing a great quantity 

 of the bituminous matter found in the resulting beds, this early 

 culmination of the Rhizocarps would be strictly in accordance with 

 other facts in the development of the vegetable kingdom. We 

 may even be permitted to speculate on the existence in the early 

 palaeozoic and eozoic ages of a rich Rhizocarpean vegetation, 

 anticipating the great development of the acrogens in the later 

 palaeozoic. 



I have not referred above to the well-known fact that in certain 

 beds of coal and shale of the Carboniferous period there are mul- 

 titudes of globular spore-cases or microspores not dissimilar from 

 those above described. These may have been derived from plants 

 of higher organization than the Rhizocarps, yet it is quite possible 

 that this group of plants may have contributed to them. It is, 

 however, only in the Erian that these Sporangites are so widely 

 and abundantly distributed in aquatic beds, and that we have 

 direct evidence as to their oris;in. 



IV. On the Athabasca District of the Canadian 

 North- West Territory, f 



By the Rev. Emile Petitot. 



Some nine years ago, I wrote a short paper on the Fur District 

 of Athabasca, which was inserted in the Bulletin of the French 

 Geographical Society, for July-September, 1875, and was also 

 twice published separately. My subsequent journeys on the 

 Upper xlthabasca river, and a stay of some months on the lake of 



* See Report on Erian Plants of Canada, 1882. 



f From the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society for Novem- 

 ber, 1883. 



