MEMORIAL OF WILLIAM M. FONTAINE \) 



"If Professor Fontaine had remained in West Virginia, he doubtless would 

 have extended his work in the Paleozoic floras, but in 1878 he became professor 

 of geology in the University of Virginia, and thereafter his studies were con- 

 fined to the Mesozoic floras, the materials for which were at hand. In 1879 

 he published his first paper on the Mesozoic of Virginia, the materials for 

 which he had been gathering during the summer vacations for a number of 

 years previously. This was a preliminary account, dealing largely with the 

 geology and areal distribution of the plant beds of the earlier Mesozoic ; or, as 

 it became later to be called, the Older Mesozoic of Virginia. Very brief men- 

 tion was also made at this time of the richly plant-bearing clays of the 

 Younger Mesozoic, or Potomac Group. 



"The full report on the older flora was issued in 1883, as volume 6 of the 

 monographs of the United States Geological Survey, under the title 'Contri- 

 butions to the Knowledge of the Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia.' In this 

 he presented the full and elaborate description of the flora of the Richmond 

 coal basin, which has furnished the most complete and best preserved of 

 American Triassic floras. This became at once the standard work of reference 

 on its subject and did much to stimulate investigation by others in beds of 

 similar age, notably in Pennsylvania. 



"During the succeeding five or six years Professor Fontaine was engaged in 

 collecting and studying what had developed into the rich and varied flora of 

 the so-called Younger Mesozoic of Virginia and Maryland. The results were 

 published in 1889 under the title 'The Potomac or Younger Mesozoic Flora,' 

 being volume 15 of the monographs of the United States Geological Survey. 

 In a number of ways this was an epoch-marking work, for to Professor Fon- 

 taine belongs the honor of having described the oldest angiospermous flora 

 known. Previous to this work the oldest dicotyledonous flora recognized in 

 this country was that of the Dakota Group, but this discovery extended the 

 range from the lower part of the Upper Cretaceous to near the base of the 

 Lower Cretaceous. The Potomac flora contained descriptions of 365 species, 

 of which a number were obviously dicotyledons. As might be presumed, many 

 of these were exceedingly archaic in appearance, though subsequent study of 

 later and better preserved material appears to indicate that they were some- 

 what less archaic than was at first supposed; in fact, it is apparent that, 

 although this was a long step backward, we are still far from the actual point 

 of origin of the group. 



"By the publication of the two works mentioned above, Professor Fontaine 

 became the recognized authority on the Mesozoic floras of the eastern portion 

 of the United States, and it was but natural that he should be called on to 

 extend his studies to include floras of similar age in other parts of the country. 

 In succession he published descriptive reports on the Kootenai of Montana 

 (1891, 1892), the Trinity of Texas (1893), and the Shasta of California (1894), 

 all of which he found more or less closely related to those of Virginia and 

 adjacent States. Many of these studies were undertaken at the suggestion of 

 the late Lester F. Ward, who about this time (1895) projected a series of 

 critipal reviews of the Mesozoic floras of the United States. Professor Ward 

 collected the material which was sent to Fontaine for study and description, 

 and in this way a great mass of interesting and valuable data were secured. 

 The first of these reports, published in 1900, began with a critical review of 



