E. W. Berry— A Fossil Nutmeg. 243 



other associated nuts are jumbled in a confused mass at all 

 angles. Violent currents could form such a jumble, but the 

 nuts would not be heavy enough to be deposited under such 

 conditions but would be carried away by water action strong 

 enough to stand them on end, nor would water-logging in more 

 quiet waters explain their varying positions. Associated with 

 nutmegs are much more numerous large-ribbed nuts as yet 

 unidentified. These lie at all angles in the sandstone but occur 

 elsewhere in clays, in which case they invariably lie on their 

 sides. The conclusions of Dr. Goldman, based on a petro- 

 graphic study of the matrix, i. e., the proportion of different 

 sizes of grains present, their rounding, the ratio of feldspar to 

 quartz, the degree of weathering, absence of clay, proportion 

 of heavy minerals, etc., for a detailed discussion of which the 

 reader is referred to the paper cited, point to strong seolian 

 action in a hot arid climate. 



The nuts are fully matured and evidently were shed natu- 

 rally and at no great distance from the sand flats where they 

 subsequently became entombed. The sediments do not, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Goldman, show characters of dune sands, and I infer 

 that the winds which rounded and sorted the sand grains were 

 not constant enough in direction to form dunes of any size. 

 Under such conditions of blowing about the arils would soon 

 be lost, but the perisperm cannot be conceived of as being so 

 readily dissipated although I know of no other method to 

 account for its absence. It must be remembered that less than 

 a dozen nuts are known, that much of the sand from near-by 

 outcrops appears to have been blown into pools of standing 

 water where the accompanying leaves Avere fossilized in a 

 normal flat condition, and that the small percentage of nutmegs 

 preserved in the wind-blown sands may thus be exceptional 

 when the possibility is considered of large numbers fossilized 

 in a normal way with perisperm intact. 



That the fossils are unmistakably those of a species of Myris- 

 tica I think no botanist will dispute. !No leaves that 1 can 

 identify as those of Myristica have as yet been determined, but 

 the leaf material is scanty, and I have not enough recent 

 material of this genus for intelligent comparison of the foliar 

 organs. 



The recent species of this family which number about 90 

 forms are variously treated. De Candolle* referred them all 

 to the single genus Myristica which he segregated into 13 

 sections, and this is the method followed by Prantlf in Die 

 Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien. Other authors raise a num- 

 ber of these sections to generic rank, quite rightly so it seems 



* Ann. Sci. Nat., 4th ser., Bot. tome iv, pp. 20-31. 

 fTeiHTI, Abth. 2, 1891. 



