REVIEWS. 
411 
of doing something original, with which the compiler of a mere catalogue 
cannot console himself. The Rev. George Ilenslow has just put in this last 
claim to the gratitude of English botanists, by the publication of a “ Student’s 
Catalogue of British Plants,” founded upon Sir Joseph Hooker’s “ Student’s 
Elora,” and indicating all the species and sub-species, and the chief recognised 
varieties of the “ British Phanerogams ” and “ Vascular Cryptogams.” The 
pamphlet has been privately printed, but Mr. Ilenslow has placed copies in 
the hands of a boo'kseller who will send them to purchasers by post. 
CANADIAN PAL/EONTOLOGY.* 
F ROM the “ Geological Survey of Canada,” we have received the first two 
parts of a work on the Mesozoic Fossils of certain outlying parts of the 
great region to which its investigations are devoted. In the first of these, 
published three years ago, Mr. J. F. Whiteaves describes and figures a series 
of fossil Invertebrata, chiefly Mollusca, collected by Mr. James Richardson, 
from the coal-bearing rocks of the Queen Charlotte Islands ; in the second, 
the same palaeontologist deals with the fossils of the Cretaceous rocks of 
Vancouver, and adjacent islands in the Strait of Georgia; these deposits also 
containing beds of coal. 
In the case of the rocks of the Queen Charlotte Islands, the examination 
of these fossils is of particular interest, as they seem to show clearly that, so 
far as can be judged by their Fauna, these deposits occupy the same inter- 
mediate position between the Oolitic and Cretaceous series, as interpreted 
by European types, which seems to belong to several groups of rocks in 
other parts of North America. The general character of the Fauna appears 
to be like that of the Shasta group of California and British Columbia, of 
which the author thinks it will be advisable to regard them as representing 
one of the oldest members ; at least, until further information on the deposits 
grouped together under the above name shall be obtained. 
The fossils from the Vancouver district, on the other hand, are of unmis- 
takable Cretaceous age, and are considered by Mr. Whiteaves to indicate that 
the deposits from which they are derived are the equivalents of the Euro- 
pean Upper Cretaceous series ; at least, so far as the four lower divisions 
which he distinguishes among them are concerned : with regard to three 
upper divisions, it is uncertain, at present, whether they are Cretaceous or 
Tertiary. 
These publications on special departments of North American Palaeon- 
tology will be of great interest in the discussion of the equivalence of the 
North American and European Cretaceous deposits, and in the solution of 
the great question of the sequence in time of the formations in various parts 
of the world, if that problem is destined ever to be solved. The total number 
of species noticed or described are 45 in the first, and 94 in the second part, 
and 17 species in each series are regarded as previously undescribed. These 
and the greater part of the known species are very well figured upon 20 
plates. 
* Mesozoic Fossils, Vol. I. Parts 1 & 2. By J. F. Whiteaves, F.G.S. 
8vo. Montreal : Dawson Bros., 1876 & 1879. 
