496 Scientific Intelligence. 



Flora, by Ottokae Feistmantel, Mem. Geol. Surv. N. S. W., 

 Palaeontology, No. 3. Sydney, 1890, 183 pp., xxx pi., 4°. — The 

 basis of this valuable memoir, by one to whom we are especially 

 indebted for knowledge of the fossil floras of the Paleozoic and 

 Mesozoic of India and Australia, is a translation of his contribu- 

 tions published in the third Supplement-volume of Palaeonto- 

 graphica, 1878-79. The entire work, including the complete 

 historical and bibliographic data, has undergone thorough revis- 

 ion and considerable enlargement. Numerous annotations are 

 added by Mr. C. S. Wilkinson, Director of the Geological Survey 

 of New South Wales, and Mr. R. Etheridge Jr., the editor of the 

 present memoir. The paleontological part of the work consists 

 chiefly of systematic descriptions of all the fossil fishes, amphibia, 

 and plants that have been described from the above epochs in 

 Australia, with a table of their distribution. Two new species, 

 Glossopteris gangamopteroides from the Newcastle beds, and G. 

 spathulato-cordata from the same beds and the Mersey coal beds 

 (Permian ? ) of Tasmania, are described. Much interest and some 

 controversy between animal and vegetable paleontologists have 

 been aroused in the determination of the age of the Australian 

 deposits, on account of the mingling of a Mesozoic flora with a 

 Paleozoic fauna for a period extending from the Lower Carbon- 

 iferous probably to the Jurassic. Dr. Feistmantel, agreeing sub- 

 stantially with the resident geologists, assigns the Goono Goono 

 and lower Lepidodendron beds of Queensland and Victoria to 

 the Devonian ; the Smith's Creek, Port Stephens and Bobun- 

 tungen beds with Catamites radiatus, Rhacopteris incequilatera, 

 Archceopteris, and Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, to the Lower 

 [Sub-?] Carboniferous; the "lower coal measures" with Phyl- 

 lotheca, Glossopteris, Noeggerathiopsis, etc., the forerunners of 

 the Mesozoic flora, occurring between marine beds with a middle 

 and upper Carboniferous fauna, to the Upper part of the Carbon- 

 iferous ; the " upper coal measures," an overlying series of coal 

 beds and other fresh-water deposits, with Phyllotheca, Vertebraria, 

 Glossopteris, Gangamopteris and JJrosthenes, a heterocercal fish, 

 at Newcastle, are relegated to the Permian ; while the Hawkes- 

 bury-Wianamatta Series, with heterocercal fish, which if alone 

 would be considered Permian, is placed in the Trias, the Clarence 

 River series being called Jurassic. Exception is taken by Mr. 

 Wilkinson to the definite correlation of the Baccus Marsh 

 " Bowlder-bed " of Victoria with those in the marine series of 

 New South Wales almost entirely on account of the supposed 

 glacial origin of the bowlder-beds. The correlation of the Austra- 

 lian with the Chinese, Indian, Afghan, and South African plant 

 bearing terranes corresponds for the most part with that published 

 in the Prag Sitzungsberichte since this memoir was prepared, 

 (1888). The descriptive text is illustrated by thirty plates of 

 plants and fishes. The former are carefully re-drawn and re- 

 arranged from the German work with the addition of new mate- 

 rial. The latter include drawings of the three species of Palceo- 

 niscus, Cleithrolepis, and Myriolepis from the Hawkesbury-Wian- 



