266 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
that part of the field were the Gowrie shaft and the new Stonehenge 
shaft, near Midlothian, and the Bright Hope and Raccoon shafts at 
Clover Hill. Nevertheless, many other interesting places were noted, 
and in the following September these were all visited by Professor 
Fontaine and collections made. 
In the course of the more recent extended investigations that have 
been made in the Richmond coal field by Prof. N. S. Shaler and his 
field parties,’ Mr. J. B. Woodworth, in 1896, made a small collection 
of fossil wood in Chesterfield County, at three localities given as near 
Skinquarter Station, near Otterdale, and south of Moseley Junction, 
‘ at somewhat different horizons. This material was submitted to Dr. 
F. H. Knowlton for determination, and his results were published as 
an appendix to Professor Shaler’s paper.” Dr. Knowlton distinguished 
two species of Araucarioxylon, A. virginianum and a new species 
which he names A.. Woodworth, both of which are fully described and 
illustrated. It will be noted that the first of these species is the same 
as that from Taylorsville in Hanover County (see supra, p. 264). The 
other species is closely allied to A. arizonicum of the West (see infra, 
pp. 278, 319). 
THE NORTH CAROLINA AREA. 
Our knowledge of the existence of a coal basin in North Carolina 
dates back to a very remote period, and the occurrence of vegetable 
remains in this region was, known almost as early as in any of the 
others considered. 
Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, in his first report upon the geology of North 
Carolina,* in speaking of the coal fields of that State, mentioned 
(page 142) the occurrence of vegetable remains. He says: 
The vegetables are few in number, and differ from those of the coal rocks of Penn- 
sylvania or the flora of the Carboniferous system. An Equisetites differing from E. 
communis is the only one of this genus I have seen. A Lycopodites, and other allied 
forms, are all I have yet found, except a naked and rather spinous vegetable, which 
is unknown in the Carboniferous rocks. Itis a cellular cryptogamous plant. This 
is very common and abundant at Madison, and one or two layers of slate are covered 
with it at Evans Mills. The roots of vegetables, in- the fire clay, are thin, narrow, 
ribbon-like tissues, and have lost their vegetable structure. Their thinness and com- 
pressibility show, however, that the roots were spongy, of a loose texture, and were 
“ec 10? 
quatic. 
Later on in the same report, speaking of the Dan River coal meas- 
ures (p. 147), he says: 
- Immediately above this bed of brecciated conglomerate there is‘one of the finest 
exhibitions of an ancient forest in this country. It consists partly of roots of trees 
1Geology of the Richmond Basin, Virginia, by N. 8. Shaler and J. B. Woodworth: Nineteenth Ann. 
Rept. U.S. Geol. Survey, Pt. II, 1899, pp. 385-519. 
2Report on some fossil wood from the Richmond Basin, Virginia, by F. H. Knowlton: Op. cit., 
pp. 516-519, pl. lii. 
3Executive Document No. 13, Report of Professor Emmons on his Geological Survey of North 
Carolina, Raleigh, 1852. 
