REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 
Tue FossıL Prants or Canapa.*— This elaborate work relates 
chiefly to the Devonian flora of Gaspé and St. John, New Bruns- 
wick, and indeed is a revision of the Pre-carboniferous flora of 
Eastern North America, as the author has introduced “such 
allied species from New York, Ohio, and Maine as may serve to` 
illustrate the Canadian species.” He proposes the term Erian, 
derived from the great Erie division of the New York geol- 
ogists, instead of Devonian, hoping ‘to keep before the minds 
of geologists the caution that they should not measure the Erian 
formations of America or the fossils which they contain, by the 
comparatively depauperated representatives of this portion of the 
geological scale in the Devonian of Western Europe.” 
e notices and figures illustrating the Dadoxylon, “ evidently 
an Araucarian conifer” of which no foliage nor fruit have been 
found, only drifted trunks a foot in diameter; of the Psilophyton, 
the species of which were “ synthetic or generalized plants,” hav- 
ing rootlets resembling those of some ferns, stems having the struc- 
ture of Lycopodium, and rudimentary leaves also resembling those 
of the club mosses (Lycopodiacez), branchlets with circinati ve- 
nation like that of ferns, and sporangia of a type quite peculiar to 
themselves, are of much interest. He also describes and figures 
trunks of tree ferns from Gilboa, N. Y. ‘‘ where these trunks 
are stated to occur in an erect position in sandstone” and are now 
in Prof. Hall’s collection, while Prof. Newberry has communicated 
to him “two well characterized trunks of tree ferns from the De- 
vonian of Ohio, and another from Gilboa, N. Y. so that the oceur- 
rence of large tree ferns in the Erian flora is now well established.” 
As to Silurian vegetation, a few sea weeds occur in the Upper 
Silurian limestones of Gaspé, but with them are associated in the 
lower part of the limestone, remains of the land plant Psilophy- 
ton, which suffice to indicate the existence of neighboring land, 
probably composed of the Lower Silurian rocks, and supporting 
vegetation. He also announces on a subsequent page his discov- 
ery of fossil trees of the type of Prototaxites in the Upper 
Silurian of England. 
*The fossil plants of the Devonian and Upper Silurian formations of Canada. By 
J. W. Dawson, LL. D, F.R.S, F.G.S. With seein re tes and cuts. Geological Survey 
of Canada, Montreal. Dawson Brothers, 1871. Royal 8vo. pp. 923. $2.50. (99) 
