378 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
oval in cross section, the long diameter being about 12 inches and the short diameter 
about 8 inches. It-came from the vicinity of Boulder, Colorado, and it is said to 
have been two or three times as long as now when first discovered. It was found in 
excavating for a railroad, and was smashed and buried—all but this piece—before its 
value was recognized. It is the same size throughout, and is hardly at all worn. It 
looks very much like one of the Black Hills specimens. 
Knowing that Professor Jenney, who had shown so much interest in 
the cycads of the Black Hills, was at the time in Denver, and presuming 
that he was familiar with matters at the Colorado State School of 
Mines, I immediately wrote to him and asked him to assist me in 
securing, if possible, the loan of this specimen to the Geological Survey 
or National Museum long enough to describe it and report upon it. 
He communicated with President Regis Chauvenet, of the State School 
of Mines, and prepared the way for a correspondence on the subject. 
I wrote to President Chauvenet in September, and received a reply 
from Prof. Horace B. Patton, dated September 30, 1896, in which he 
says: 
Your letter of recent date, asking for the loan of the cycad in the possession of the 
Colorado State School of Mines, has been received, also the photographs of cycads, 
for which please accept our thanks. We take pleasure in sending the cycad as you 
suggest. It was accordingly shipped several days ago by freight to the National 
Museum. I am sorry that I can not tell much as to the locality where it was found. 
It was secured by a certain J. Alden Smith in a railroad excavation near Boulder, 
Colorado. Mr. Smith was able to secure only one piece, although he was told by 
workmen that others belonging to the same piece had been found, but they were 
covered up somewhere in the dump. This was probably not less than ten or twelve 
years ago. Mr. Smith has been dead for some years. The above information I 
secured from President Chauvenet of this school, who bought the cycad with the- 
rest of a large collection from Mr. Smith. 
The specimen arrived in due time and is still in my hands, awaiting 
an appropriate occasion to publish a description of it. The descrip- 
tion here given was written in 1897, and the photographs used in 
illustrating it were taken by Mr. T. W. Smillie, in the gallery of the 
U. S. National Museum, soon after the specimen was received. 
Genus CYCADEOIDEA Buckland.' 
CycaDEoIDEa NiGRA Ward n. sp. 
Pl. LXVIII; Pl. LXIX. 
Trunk large and rather tall, simple, much compressed laterally, 
thoroughly silicified, of a uniform black color externally and inter- 
nally, very hard and heavy, 1 meter or more in height, 40 to 50 
cm. in greater diameter, 25 to 30 em. in lesser, with a girth of 
about 1 meter; organs of the armor descending below the middle; leaf 
scars arranged in two regular and distinct spiral rows around the 
1 For the systematic position of Cycadeoidea see supra, p. 302. 
