610 The American Naturalist. [July, 
bottom to top, with innumerable twisters at every level. Those at the 
bottom are constructed upon smaller and more uniform lines and stand 
in bold contrast to the large and diversified forms at the top. 
Microscopic sections from all the five forms to the number of 120 
demonstrate the fact that there is an apparent similarity of tissue in all 
and that it is cellular, but not vascular. Mr. Barbour’s conclusions 
relate only to the first three forms and the surface structure of the 
great cork screws. The central spiral tube is under consideration. He 
suggests that it may represent the root of some higher plant about 
which the original Deemonelix fibers grew. (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 
Vol. 8, 1897.) 
The Nature, Structure and Phylogeny of Dzemonelix.’— 
Prof. Barbour brings forth in this, his latest paper on the peculiar 
fossil popularly known in the region where it is found as the “ Devil's 
corkscrew,” additional evidence to support his already well supported 
conclusion that the fossil is that of an aquatic plant. The figures that 
he gives of sections showing plant parenchymatous cells in cross and in 
longitudinal section are much superior to any that he has previously 
published. The evidence that they form, together with the evidence of 
slides sent the writer, is conclusive. The fossil was a plant and is not 
the mould of the roots of some plant 
But in this and in a preceding paper’ Prof. Barbour goes further than 
previously and cautiously claims to be able to make out the phylogeny 
of the fossil. At the bottom of the beds in which Dzemonelix occurs 
there are to be found irregular filamentous remains; above these, cake- 
like masses; above these, large irregular root-like forms that gradually 
metamorphose into regular screw-like forms. All present the same 
parenchymatous cellular structure when viewed in carefully made sec- 
tions beneath the microscope. The author’s idea is a bright, and it may 
added, a daring one—daring in view of the tremendous change 
that is claimed to have taken place within the brief interval of geolog- 
ical time represented by the 250 to 300 feet of sediment forming the 
fossil bed. According to ideas more or less generally accepted, if the 
writer mistakes not, the waters of the great pliocene lake in which these 
fossils flourished are suppused to have been comparatively heavily laden 
with sediment, and as the structure of the beds shows, that it 
i E. H. Barbour, Bul. Geol. Soc. Amer., VIII, 305-14. Reprint from the 
author. 
? History of the Discovery and Report of Progress in the study of Deemonelix. 
University Studies, Lincoln, Nebraska, Jan., 1887., IJ, 81-125. 
