Sovie Pakeohotanical Aspects. 275 



of whose forms are hardly separable from the Acadian 

 type. The Nova Scotian flora appears also to correspond 

 to the Calciferous Sandstone series of Scotland, as has also 

 been indicated by Mr. Kidston, who so ably elaborated the 

 latter flora. The Horton plant terrane should, on purely 

 pala3obotanical grounds, lie below the typical Carboniferous 

 Limestone ; but I believe it should go hardly so low as 

 the Ursa stage, or below the boundary generally accepted 

 for the Lower Carboniferous. While granting that cer- 

 tain of the rocks included by the Nova Scotia geologists 

 under the Hamilton rubric may be Hamilton in age, I do 

 not hesitate to insist that the Horton plant beds are not 

 earlier, at most, than the LTrsa stage. 



The Eiversdale and Harrington Eiver Plant Beds. 



The plant beds near Eiversdale and Harrington Eiver 

 also are assigned to the Middle Devonian by the Nova 

 Scotia geologists. The Eiversdale plants were, in 1873, 

 correlated by Sir William Dawson with the Millstone 

 Grit. Although but a small quantity of plant material 

 from these beds has come under my personal observation, 

 even this, which includes typical representatives of 

 Neuropteris, Alethopteris, Annularia, Gordaites and Gardio- 

 carpon, is unequivocally Carboniferous.^ Whether inter- 

 preted by the specimens in hand or the lists submitted by 

 Mr. Kidston (who reached nearly the same conclusion), it 

 is clear that the Eiversdale-Harrington Eiver plants are 

 most closely allied to the flora of the Canadian Millstone 

 Grit, or, more explicitly, to the plants of the Pottsville 

 formation in the Appalachian trough. Taking into 

 account the small amount of plant material, and the lim- 

 ited number of fern species, it appears unwise to insist on 



1 RecenUy Dr. H. M. Ami, of the Geological Survey of Canada, has announced the 

 discovery, in the Harrington Biver beds, of specimens of Whittleseya, an American 

 genus as yet unknown below the Pottsville formation. See the Ottawa Naturalist,\o\. 

 XIV., Aug-., 1900. 



I 



