CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY. 107 



5. The Devonian flora was not of lower grade than that of the Coal 

 period. On the contrary, in the little that we know of it we find more points 

 of resemblance to the floras of the Mesozoic period, and of modern tropical 

 and austral islands, than in that of the true Coal formation. We may infer 

 from this, in connexion with the preceding general statement, that in the 

 progress of discovery, very large and interesting additions will be made to 

 our knowledge of this flora, and that we may possibly also learn something 

 of a land fauna contemporaneous with it. 



6. The fades of the Devonian flora in America is very similar to that of 

 the same period in Europe, yet the number of identical species does not 

 seem to be so great as in the coal-fields of the two continents. This may be 

 connected with the difi'erent geographical conditions in these two periods ; 

 but the facts are not yet sufficiently numerous to prove this. 



7. The above general conclusions are not materially diff"erent from those 

 arrived at by Gceppert, Unger and Bronn, from a consideration of the 

 Devonian Flora of Europe. 



The preceding pages, to 104 inclusive, extracted from Professor 

 Dawson's paper, are followed by the descriptions and notices of 

 sixty-seven species of fossil plants. The summary of the whole, in 

 their geological and geographical distribution, is presented in the 

 accompanying table and " Conclusion," from the same article. 



NOTE. 



In a note to Prof. Dawson, published in the Canadian Naturalist, Yol. vii, 

 No. 5, I have already explained that, from personal explorations made in 

 the autumn of 1862, connected with facts before observed by myself and 

 others, I am satisfied that the beds in the eastern part of the State of New- 

 York, which have been referred to the Catskill group, are in reality, to a 

 great extent, of the Chemung group ; that the coarser character of materials 

 in the upper partof the Hamilton group has, in many localities, so simulated 

 the lithological character of the Chemung as to be mistaken for the latter ; 

 and I am now disposed to believe that some isolated localities of the upper 

 part of the Hamilton group have been referred to the Catskill group. These 

 erroneous references have arisen, as I have said, partly from the coarseness 

 of the upper part of the Hamilton group, and partly from the occurrence of 

 an extensive deposit of red shaly sandstone and shale at the base of the 

 Chemung group, with alternations of similar beds at intervals in that group. 

 At the same time the fossiliferous beds of the Chemung group are fewer, 

 and the number of their species is far less than in the central and western 

 part of the State. These conditions combined, have caused the Catskill 

 group to be carried downwards from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet 

 below beds which clearly belong to the Chemung group. 



