58 FOSSIL PLANTS AS TESTS OF CLIMATE. 
a regulator of ies of which it prevents exce WwW 
venture to think that this statement is as correct for cold vomperat 
plants as for tropic al nek and that neither wood nor cor 
special adaptation against cold. 
In dealing with the possibility of using the structure Se fossil 
plants as a guide to climate, the author gives most ention 
to those of the Cusbunifersis Period, and concludes at ‘“‘ we 
cannot as yet learn many lessons in Climatology from the 
structure of stems, roots, and other parts of fossil plants,” 
n this we fully agree. Thanks to the researches ~ Carruthers, 
Wilkinson, —“ Sree continental co-workers, the minute struc- 
tur e best known types has been euikaa out with 
considerable detail, but this merely gives us some idea of the 
e habitat, and throws little light on that of climate. 
ts sentiedicne the case of Lepidodendron, Mr. Seward follows what 
is a common practice, and speaks of the vascular tissue as 
‘‘wood.”” We would suggest that the time has arrived when a 
reform of this terminology is urgently needed, especially if we are 
to employ the structure of the fossil in the diagnosis of climate. 
Oo 
of tra 
subserving the functions of conduction, mechan cal 
support, and s storage of elaborated food-stuffs. =e te 
either ~ does not mean the same thing as in Diesel if 
this were borne in era e should not hear so — about the 
ied 
secondary xylem. Curiously enough, Mr. Seward describes this 
sclerenchyma as cork, overlooking the facts that it lies entirely y within 
the generating layer, which produces it centrifugally, an 
tissues outside it appear to retain their power of growth even when 
it has attained ee eee 0 sepernt 
assing over the n chapters on ‘Annual Rings in 
Recent and Fossil Plan or and ‘Arctic Fossil Plants” respec- 
tively, we have another excellent chapter on the Climate of the 
Carboniferous Period as indicated by other characteristics of the 
vegetation than those of structure. Here the evidence which has 
rendered — i the old ideas of a tropical climate, with an 
atmos osphere mn with moisture wig carbon Eg is well set out, 
and specia. ieoaiianee | is given to the views of the lat e Dr. 
Neumayer, of Vienna. There is malin. hemeisk: which calls for 
special comment or criticism, and the same may be said of the 
closing chapter on the plants of the Pleiocene. eerpen Hick. 
