14 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY.  [Feb. 
of Arkansas, are among the rarest fossil remains of that epoch. 
Another lot of sixty specimens of fossil plants was obtained by 
the curator in Rhode Island, some from the black shales 
exposed along the beach at Newport, and the largest number 
from the anthracite bed worked ten miles north of Newport, at 
Mount Hope coal mines. 
The same opportunity is still offered to the Museum of pur- 
chasing at a low price a fine collection of fossil plants at New- 
port, from the carboniferous measures of Rhode Island, and 
another at Morris, essentially composed of specimens in con- 
eretions from Mazon Creek. Both these collections would be 
already a valuable acquisition for the Museum, if it were merely 
on account of the beauty and rarity of the remains of plants 
which they contain. But the fossil plants of these localities 
are, by their nature and their number, intimately connected 
with scientific questions of importance, which they may help to 
elucidate. For example, Morris and Mazon Creek have fur- 
nished till now, by their fossil remains, the largest number of 
species of plants found at the same place, and therefore they 
represent, far better than any other local flora, the vegetation 
of the carboniferous epoch, and its true character. For this 
reason, this fossil flora of Morris is a reliable point of compari- 
son for the fossil plants of other deposits, considered either in 
their geographical or their stratigraphical distribution. <A 
number of specimens are found in ferruginous concretions, in 
which even the most delicate species or organs of plants are 
preserved ; and it would seem, from the riches of this flora, 
that we know as yet only that part of the vegetation of the coal 
epoch which is represented by hard, woody vegetables, while 
the more delicate ones have been totally destroyed by macera- 
tion. “This supposition is confirmed by the number of small 
animals, Crustacea, Insects, Saurians, &c., whose remains, 
never found till now in the coal measures, are tolerably numer- 
ous in the concretions of Mazon Creek. At Newport, or in 
Rhode Island generally, where a number of remarkable species 
of plants have been discovered, which have not been found 
elsewhere in our American carboniferous measures, the vegeta- 
ble remains are more or less deformed by metamorphism, either 
elongated or contracted in various ways. ‘These remains show 
evidently the action of heat on the shales, and on the carbona- 
