328 L. F. Ward — Fossil Cycads in the Yale Museum. 



only am I keenly aware of the superficiality and defectiveness 

 of my work, but I have urged on all occasions the importance 

 of the exhaustive study of the wonderful structure of these 

 cycadean trunks that reveals itself to the lens and even to the 

 naked eye. I presented this aspect of the case in the strongest 

 form I could command to Professor Marsh, and pointed out 

 to him the "unlimited possibilities" of such a study of the 

 great Yale collection. I am happy to record his warm appre- 

 ciation of the fact, which led him actually to inaugurate it 

 some months before his death, bj T inducing Mr. George P. 

 Wieland to undertake it and by placing at his disposal every 

 possible facility for the prosecution of this work. Professor 

 Marsh's successor, Dr. C. E. Beecher, with the approval of the 

 Trustees of Yale University Museum, has allowed no interrup- 

 tion in these valuable researches, so creditable to the institution, 

 and has placed them on a permanent basis. 



I am only to speak here of my own work, much of which I 

 have already recorded and need only allude to,* confining 

 myself to the additional results that have been reached by 

 recent study. As stated in the Nineteenth Annual Report of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey, Part II, pp. 546 and 547, I 

 worked up all the cycad material from the Black Hills in the 

 Yale Museum, in the months of March and June, 1898, and 

 the 22 species described in that report were based on the mate- 

 rial in the U. S. National Museum, and on 126 specimens in 

 the Yale Museum, contained in two invoices, the first of 87 

 specimens and the second of 39. These were illustrated in 97 

 plates, and that paper constitutes the basis for subsequent and 

 future investigations. It was known at that time that other 



* For the benefit of any who may be specially interested, I herewith refer to 

 the following papers of mine relating in whole or in part to fossil cycadean trunks : 

 Fossil Cycadean Trunks of North America, with a Revision of the Genus Cyca- 

 deoidea Buckland. Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. ix, Washington, April 9, 1894, 

 pp. 75-88; The Cretaceous Rim of the Black Hills, Journal of Geology, vol. ii, 

 No. 3, Chicago, April-May, 1894, pp. 250-266; Recent Discoveries of Cycadean 

 Trunks in the Potomac Formation of Maryland. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. xxi, 

 No. 7, July 20, 1894, pp. 291-299; Some Analogies in the Lower Cretaceous of 

 Europe and America, Sixteenth Annual Report, TJ. S. Geological Survey, 1894- 

 95, Pt I, Washington, 1896, pp. 463-542, pis. xcvii-cvii ; Descriptions of the 

 Species of Cycadeoidea, or Fossil Cycadean Trunks, thus far discovered in the 

 Iron Ore Belt, Potomac Formation, of Maryland, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 

 vol. ix, March 13. 1897, pp 1-17; Descriptions of the Species of Cycadeoidea, or 

 Fossil Cycadean Trunks, thus far determined from the Lower Cretaceous Rim of 

 the Black Hills, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. xxi (No. 1141). Washington, 1898, 

 pp. 195-229; The Cretaceous Formation of the Black Hills as indicated by the 

 Fossil Plants, Nineteenth Annual Report, TJ. S. Geological Survey, 1897-98, Pt. 

 II, Washington, 1899, pp. 521-946, pis. lvii-clxxii; Description of a New Genus 

 and Twenty New Species of Fossil Cycadean Trunks from the Jurassic of 

 Wyoming, Proc Washington Acad. Sci., vol. i, pp. 253-300, pis. xiv-xxi; Status 

 of the Mesozoic Floras of the United States, First Paper, The Older Mesozoic, 

 Twentieth Annual Report, TJ. S. Geological Survey, 1898-99, Pt. II, pp. 211-748, 

 pis. xxi-clxxix. 



