194 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



SOME MARINE ALGAE FROM THE TREXTOX LIME- 

 STONE OF NEW YORK 



BY R. RUEDEMANN 



The early paleontologists described as algae all fossil bodies from 

 the marine beds which in their habit had some similarity to plants, 

 whether or not any organic structure or substance was shown, 

 and in so doing created a burdensome mass of names. The ten- 

 dency of late has been to doubt the vegetable nature of all so 

 called Paleozoic seaweeds; or to follow Nathorst 1 who, after prov- 

 ing the mechanic or animal origin of many of them, makes the 

 presence of a rind of coal the ultimate criterion. Solms-Laubach, 2 

 however, will not admit this, since " the coal may entirely dis- 

 appear in the course of time from remains that are undoubtedly 

 organic, if they are deposited in a porous rock." 



The actual presence of fossil algae in at least one of the Paleo- 

 zoic formations of X T ew York, viz the Chemung, was demonstrated 

 a few years ago by David White. 3 It is pointed out by this emi- 

 nent paleobotanist that plant life of the class Algae must have 

 been very abundant in the Siluric and Devonic eras and that 

 the apparent rarity of undoubted Paleozoic seaweeds is due to 

 several causes one of which is here cited as having a direct 

 bearing on the material in hand and the discussion to follow. 

 This is the partial explanation of the apparent rarity, resting 

 " in the remarkable similarities in form and habit between 

 many algae and certain contemporaneous low animal types, spe- 

 cially among the sponges and sertularians, whose structure was 

 so much better suited to preservation as to establish a presumptive 

 hypothesis that the resemblant forms must embrace the animal 

 characters of structure and would not have been preserved but 

 for the presence of the latter. " 



A reaction from the tendency to refer the distinctly preserved 

 algoid remains to the animal rather than to the vegetable kingdom 

 may be said to have set in in the last decade of the preceding 

 century. It is denoted by investigations of Rothpletz. Alexander 

 Brown, Stolley and Whitfield. The first named author 4 began by 

 referring to the algae, G i r v a n e 1 1 a p r o b 1 e m a t i c a Nichol- 



1 Nathorst, A. G. Kongl. Svenska Akad. Hand!. 1881. v. 18, n. 7. 



3 H. Graf zu Solms-Laubach. Fossil Botany. 1S01. p. 47- 

 'White, David. N. Y. State Mus. Bui. 52. 1902. p. 593- 



4 Aug. Rothpletz: Fossile Kalkalgen aus den Familien der Codiaceen und 

 der Corallineen. Zeitschr. d. deutsch. geol. Ges. 43 Bd. 1891. p. 205. 



