476 Scientific Intelligence. 



onomy; though one may doubt whether paleobotanists will 

 willingly give up Yuccites, long used for striking forms of the 

 Lias and other Mesozoic formations. 



Always a zealous reader, Professor Seward enlivens his pages 

 with many apt references, and there is a real charm to the quo- 

 tations of well-put opinion, rescued from the ever increasing mass 

 of contributions. For instance, it was Williamson (p. 305), who 

 suspected from the great variety of ancient seeds that "there 

 were in the Carboniferous forests many gymnospermous stems 

 clothed with foliage of which we have not yet discovered any 

 traces, probably because these Gymnosperms did not nourish 

 upon the low swampy grounds which were the homes of the 

 great mass of the coal producing plants. ' ' Even the detection of 

 the seed ferns fails to rob this view of all its force. 



The account of the Williamsonians brings into full view this 

 remarkable Mesozoic tribe. Williamsoniella with its small cune- 

 ate stamens confirms and extends previous observations. But 

 the interpretation of what Lignier felicitously termed the 

 "litigious" Williamsonian disk and cone casts, is far from con- 

 vincing. These are held to indicate a terminal [apical] whorl 

 of concrescent microsporophylls surmounting the ovulate cone 

 (fig. 547). Nevertheless, in the reviewer's judgment it is still 

 probable that these flowers, though capable of great variation, as 

 well as dioecism, all adhered to, or varied directly from, the 

 essentially magnoliaceous plan, with the stamens hypogynous. 



It is stated (page 126) that precise information as to the 

 structure of Codonotheca is not yet available; but this ought 

 rather to be said of the various comparable European types, 

 some of which are probably miscalled seeds. Also, Codonotheca 

 suggests the disk hypothesis of Wieland just as distinctly as the 

 synangial theory of Benson, for the origin of the ancient leafy 

 seeds. 



No one will find the round number of text figures large, and 

 full half as many more would have been welcome. Some of the 

 halftones are, however, vague, and the "fruit cavity" in the 

 historic Dresden Cycadeoidea (fig. 534) looks mysterious. 



While giving momentary attention to some of these mooted 

 points, in which it must be confessed paleobotany still abounds, 

 it is mainly wished to accentuate the importance of Professor 

 Seward 's work. His volumes must long remain a standard. 

 Indeed they constitute a great milestone in the effort to reach 

 precision in the study of ancient plants, and it is hoped the con- 

 cluding volume (or volumes) may soon appear. g. r. w. 



2. The Cedar Mountain Trap Ridge near Hartford; by W. M. 

 Davis (communicated). — The writer desires to put on record 

 an observation made during a recent visit to Hartford, concern- 

 ing the trap ridge known as Cedar Mountain that extends south- 

 ward from near that city. The ridge was interpreted by Prof. 

 Wm. North Rice of Middletown, who was associated with me 25 



