222 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
extend into Utah, Nevada, and Colorado. The beds near Taylors- 
ville, California, will receive separate treatment. 
Of these several deposits the one that has attracted the largest share 
of attention is the so-called Richmond coal field in Virginia, which has 
been the subject of a valuable contribution by Prof. William M. Fon- 
taine, published in 1883 as Monograph VI of the United States Geo- 
logical Survey. 
Next in importance is the region in the State of North Carolina 
which was early investigated by Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, who published 
the results primarily in his report on the Geology of North Caro- 
lina as State geologist, and finally embodied them in his American 
Geology, Part VI. 
A few fossil plants were long ago described and figured by Dr. 
Edward Hitchcock in his report on the geology of Massachusetts, and 
in several papers in the American Journal of Science. Later, Dr. J. S. 
Newberry elaborated certain material in his hands at the School of 
Mines, Columbia College, New York, and published the same in con- 
nection with the fossil fishes of the Connecticut Valley in a monograph 
of the Geological Survey. This work is of special value to us in the 
consideration of the question of correlation of the various Triassic 
beds, since Dr. Newberry took much interest in this question and 
made’ careful comparisons with all the other plant remains as well as 
the animal remains of the Trias: His conclusions, therefore, upon this 
question are of the highest importance and are quite freely expressed. 
The material from the Western beds has. consisted chiefly of fossil 
wood, of which vast quantities exist, strewn over the plains of Arizona 
and New Mexico, and which has been repeatedly reported upon and 
graphically described by many writers. But until recently very little 
else has been known from that region. The work upon which we must 
rely for most of our information with regard to that region, aside from 
the fossil wood, is that known as the report of the Macomb Exploring 
Expedition, in which Dr. J. S. Newberry, as naturalist of that expe- 
dition, describes and figures a considerable number of Triassic fossil 
plants; but most of the plants dealt with in this report come from 
Mexico and not from any part of the United States. 
Better to understand the history of the work done on the fossil 
plants of the American Trias, we will now undertake a brief review 
of the subject. 
THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY AREA. 
Beginning with the most northern of the Eastern deposits, viz, 
that of the Connecticut Valley, we find that the earliest mention made 
of fossil: plants was that by Dr. Edward Hitchcock, in the American 
1 Fossil fishes and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley, by 
John §. Newberry: Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, Vol. XIV, Washington, 1888. 
