REPORT OF TI-IE DIRECTOR I919 II 



themselves show that the sea which covered this region slowly with- 

 drew and the trees crept down from land to the water's edge, or 

 grew over the delta plain of the fresh-water streams flowing in 

 from the old land at the east. Then for a long time the first forest 

 must have been flooded by the waters, probably by the rising of the 

 sea which deposited the 60 feet of overlying rocks, until another 

 retreat of the water again brought the forest down to the shore. 

 There was an oscillation of the coast line, the sea rising and falling 

 and the trees approaching, receding and approaching again toward 

 the edge of the water. The story of the earth's primitive forest 

 when fully written promises to be an interesting one, and it is hoped 

 to reproduce, in part at least, in the State Museum, this picture out 

 of the dim past. 



It may be added to the foregoing " story " that these stumps when 

 first found and recorded in the i8th report of the Museum, were 

 studied by Sir William Dawson, then principal of McGill College 

 and in his day the leading authority on the plants of the Devonian, 

 and were regarded by him as probably " tree ferns," Psilophy- 

 ton textilis, but present evidence indicates that they were 

 also related to the cycad palms and probably are associated to the 

 cycadofilices which were allies to both these groups. The location 

 of the new series of stumps has been due to Herbert S. Woodward, 

 who has. had the assistance of Messrs Ruedemann and Hartnagel in 

 the careful extraction of the remains and in the important discovery 

 of the fruit cases. 



Archeology. Excavations on Boughton Hill. Late in the sum- 

 mer of 1919 some field work was done on the historic Boughton Hill 

 site in Ontario county. This site, which has been the scene of exca- 

 vations and speculation on the part of antiquarians for more than a 

 century, covers portions of the Green, Moore and McMahon farms 

 in the town of Victor. The heart of the village seems to have been 

 located on what is now a narrow strip 300 feet wide on the Moore 

 farm. This strip was leased by the Museum and operations com- 

 menced on September loth. It required but a few days of excava- 

 tion to demonstrate that the site had been dug over for a period of 

 many years and that but little remained for the systematic excavator 

 to find. By persistent effort and by careful work twenty-five graves 

 were discovered during a period of 30 days. The success of this 

 search is due to the interest and conscientious labors of Everett R. 

 Burmaster^ who during a period of 15 years has acted as a field 

 helper or as an advisor. The digging at Boughton Hill was 

 difficult owing to the condition of the soil, which is a compact gravel- 



