CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY. 97 



In a previons paper, published some time since in the Quarterly Journal 

 of the Geological Society, Professor Dawson has described the Devonian 

 plants of Gaspe ; and more recently he has published, in the Canadian 

 Naturalist, descriptions of other species from Maine and New-Brunswick. 

 In the paper, of which the title is given at the beginning of this notice, the 

 New-York species are described, with new species from New-Brunswick, 

 and a resun:e of the known species of Devonian plants from Gaspe, New- 

 Brunswick, Maine, New-York and Pennsylvania. More recently, Professor 

 Dawson has prepared for publication a supplementary paper relating to 

 the further discoveries in New-Brunswick ; by which the number of known 

 species is considerably increased, making the entire known Devonian flora 

 of Northeastern America the number of eighty-two species. When it is 

 considered that so few years have elapsed since we could speak of Devonian 

 plants as distinct from those of the Coal measures, or of a Devonian Flora, 

 it is certainly no unimportant advance to be able to count a flora of this 

 number of authentic species, belonging to more than thirty distinct genera. 



In no way can I so well do justice to the subject, or to the labors of 

 Prof. Dawson, as by giving the introductory part of his paper complete. 



On the Flora of the Devonian Period in Northeastern America. 

 BY J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.G.S., 



Principal of M'Gill College, Montreal.* 



The existence of several species of land-plants in the Devonian 

 rocks of New- York and Pennsylvania was ascertained many years 

 ago by the Geological Surveys of those States, and several of 

 those plants have been described and figured in their Reports.f 

 In Canada, Sir W.E.Logan had ascertained, as early as 1843, 

 the presence of an abundant, though apparently monotonous and 

 simple, flora in the Devonian strata of Gaspe ; but it was not 

 until 1859, that these plants were described by the author in the 

 ' Proceedings ' of this Society. J More recently, Messrs. Matthew 

 and Hartt, two young geologists of St. John, New-Brunswick, 

 have found a rich and interesting flora in the semi-metamorphic 

 beds in the vicinity of that city, in which a few fossil plants had 

 previously been observed by Dr. Gesner, Dr. Robb, and Mr. Ben- 

 nett of St. John ; but they had not been figured or described. 

 These plants, however, I described in the 'Canadian Naturalist, '|| 

 together with some additional species of the same age, found at 



* Quarterly Journal of the Greological Society, Yol. xviii, p. 296. 

 t Hall and Vanuxem, Reports on the Geology of New-York ; Rogees, Report on 

 Pennsylvania. 



X Quart. Journ. Geol. Society, Vol. xv, p. 477. i| Vol. vii, May 1861. 



[Senate, No. 115.] 13 



