336 Scientific Intelligence. 



its tropical parts, arguing that they have migrated northward in 

 later times with the gradual advance of the reduced temperatures 

 in temperate latitudes. The deposits were laid down, according 

 to him, anterior to the Andean uplift, and the genera represent 

 mainly hydromegatherms of Candollean nomenclature, proba- 

 bly grown on low shores or islands in a warm moist climate. 

 Whether he has carried this theory too far can only be decided 

 by the subsequent discovery of more abundant material from 

 these and other deposits. Certain it is that its adoption in this 

 work furnishes a new basis for future investigations and can but 

 lead to important results. For example, it must suggest to 

 those engaged on the fossil floras of the Rocky Mountain region 

 of North America the importance of comparisons with tropical 

 American genera. Hitherto very little has been done in this 

 direction and our investigations have followed too closely the 

 lines of European authors. Many of the Chilian forms bear 

 a close resemblance to some of the most problematical ones from 

 the Fort Union and Laramie groups, as yet chiefly unpublished. 

 Among these are some of those referred by Engelhardt to Tetra- 

 cera, Triumfetta, Ouratea (Gomphia), Casearia, Myristica, Phoebe, 

 Omphalea, and Algernonia (Tetraplandra), which have not hith- 

 erto figured in North American paleobotany. l. f. w. 



2. Miocene Plants from Northern Bohemia — Ueber fossile 

 Pflanzen am tertidren Tvffen JVordbohmens ; von H. Engelhardt. 

 Ges. Isis in Dresden. — Abhandl. 3, 1891, pp. 20-42, pi. i. — ZTeber 

 die Flora der iiber den Braunkohlen befindlichen Tertidrschich- 

 ten von Dux ; von H. Engelhardt. Nova Acta der Ksl. Leop.- 

 Carol. Deutschen Akad. d. Naturforscher, P>d. lvii, No. 3, 1891, 

 pp. 131-219, pi. iv-xvii. — There is no one to whom the science of 

 fossil plants is more indebted in these days than Prof. Engelhardt 

 for making known the rich Tertiary floras of different parts of the 

 world. His investigations are always painstaking and his illus- 

 trations are exceedingly clear and true to nature. In these two 

 papers he gives another chapter of the interesting history of the 

 ancient vegetation of northern Bohemia, already pretty thoroughly 

 brought out by his previous labors and those of Ettingshausen 

 and others. Seventy-nine species are treated in the first, four of 

 which are new. They come from four different localities : Lieb- 

 werd, Duppau, Holaikluk, and Salesl. The lignites of Dux, 

 treated in the second and much larger memoir, yield him 177 

 species and form the subject of an exceedingly important contri- 

 bution. He gives the history of the working of these coal or lig- 

 nite mines, dating back as far as 1566, and of the accumulation 

 of the paleontological material, chiefly fossil plants, which has 

 now been placed in his hands for determination. A large num- 

 ber of the species are new to science, but the majority were pre- 

 viously known, and from these he concludes that the deposit rep- 

 resents the Middle Miocene or Helvetian stage. A remarkable 

 fact is that he finds American types to predominate, thus con- 

 firming the current glacial theory of subsequent dispersion, by 



