10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE PRINCETON MEETING 



all known Triassic floras in the United States, to which Fontaine contributed 

 studies in the newly discovered Pennsylvania plant-bearing deposits (this in 

 cooperation with A. Wanner) and a review of the types of the Ebenezer Ein- 

 mons collections from the coal field of North Carolina, which had been found 

 in the museum of Williams College. The review of the Mesozoic flora was 

 begun, and to this Fontaine supplied the study of the floras from California 

 and Oregon, then recently discovered. 



"The second installment of Ward's Status of the Mesozoic Floras was pub- 

 lished in 1905, and to which Fontaine contributed the major portion of the 

 technical studies of the floras. This contained a continuation of the Jurassic 

 flora of Oregon and brief accounts of a number of small collections from 

 Alaska, California, and Montana. In this paper there was inaugurated the 

 review of the Lrower Cretaceous floras, Fontaine supplying reports on the 

 Shasta flora of California, the Kootenai of Montana, and the Lakota of Wy- 

 oming. It also included an extensive review and revision of the Potomac 

 flora, especially as developed from many newly discovered localities in Virginia 

 and Maryland. This completed Fontaine's active work in fossil plants. 



"Professor Fontaine's paleobotanical work is thus seen to have been ex- 

 tensive and varied. As a pioneer worker he will take rank with Lesquereux, 

 Newberry, and Ward, each of whom made some field his own, and combined 

 they laid the foundations on which all subsequent work in this country must 

 be grounded. Although Fontaine evidently lacked adequate training in modem 

 botanical methods, his work was, on the whole, careful and painstaking. He 

 was keen and critical in his discrimination of forms, though, as so frequently 

 happens in the work of a pace-maker in a new field, subsequent larger and 

 better preserved collections have shown that in some cases too many forms 

 were accorded specific standing. Whatever maty be the fate of certain of his 

 systematic determinations, as a whole, Fontaine's work will stand out as of 

 the highest importance and value, not only in the field of paleobotany, but in 

 its application to the broader field of stratigraphic geology." 



Professor Fontaine was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of 

 America in December, 1888, which connection was maintained till his 

 death, and was a member of the Huguenot Society of America. 



Personally Professor Fontaine was of a modest and retiring disposi- 

 tion, kind and generous to a fault ; quiet and unassuming, but dignified ; 

 always shrinking from publicity. Those of his friends who knew him 

 best were devoted to him not only through admiration for his large intel- 

 lectuality, but through devotion for his great traits of character. He was 

 never married. 



There follows below a list of his publications : 



BIBUOGBAPHY 



1872. Notes on the Vespertine strata of Virginia and West Virginia. Am. 



Jour. Sci. (3), vol. xiii, pp. 37-48, 115-123. 



1873. Note on the West Virginia asphaltum deposit. Am. Jour. Sci. (3), vol. 



vi, pp. 409-416. 



