F 
644 On the Vertical Range of Certain Fossil Species  [July, 
also find that in their reproductive organs they form a more or 
less natural transition from the cryptogams to the phænogams, 
between which they place them. This result is most gratifying 
to the palæo-botanist, for nearly all works on fossil plants give 
the gymnosperms this position at the base of the phænogamic 
series, so sagaciously assigned to them by Brongniart. They 
have been compelled to do this in the face of the prevailing botan- 
ical systems, because this is the position which they are found to 
occupy in the ascending strata of the earth’s crust. It is aston- 
ishing that botanists could have remained so indifferent to such a 
weighty fact, and it is certainly most instructive to find the geo- 
logical record, so long unheeded, confirmed at last by the facts 
revealed in living plants. There is no evidence that those who 
have thus confirmed it were in the least influenced by it, since 
Sachs and Caruel are as silent respecting paleontology as De 
Candolle or Bentham. 
The founders and perfecters of the prevailing system of botan- 
ical Classification have not been influenced to any marked degree 
by the idea of development in vegetable life. Few of the earlier 
ones had ever heard of development, except at least as a vision- 
ary theory. This system had become established long before the 
doctrine of the fixity of species had received a shock, for although 
Lamarck, himself a botanist, had sown the seed of its ultimate 
overthrow, still it required half a century for this seed to germi- 
nate, and it was during this half century that the Jussizan system 
was supplanting the Linnzan and gaining a firm foothold. 
Shaking off, for the time being, all fixed allegiance to any sys- 
tem, let us glance fora moment at the lesson which vegetable 
palzontology now teaches upon the subject of development. 
(To be continued.) 
10: 
ON THE VERTICAL RANGE OF CERTAIN FOSSIL 
SPECIES IN PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW YORK. 
BY PROFESSOR E. W. CLAYPOLE. 
1 Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania has recently 
published a report on Montour, Columbia and several other 
_ counties, written by Professor I. C White, of the University of 
mSS Virginia. While engaged in the work Professor White 
the writer to determine for him the fossils which he 
