Review of Recent Geological Literatin'e. 321 
the list, yet its simplicity and fulness, its equal applicability 
both to the individual and the phylum, and its etymological 
correctness, ought to insure it long life and ameliorate the 
embarrassments of the student. A spirit of philanthropy will 
leave it undisturbed. 
REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
Notes on some fossil plants from the Trinity Division of the Coman- 
che series of Te.ras. W. M. Fontaine. (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. xvi, 
pages 261-282, plates XXXVI-XLIII, 1893.) 
A collection of fossil plants made by "J. W. Harvey,''* of Glen Rose, 
Texas, belonging to the Glen Rose member of the Trinity division of 
Prof. Hill, constitutes, with the careful descriptions which Prof. Fon- 
taine has given, the first important information we have had of the char- 
acter of the flora of that problematical formation. It will be remem- 
bered, however, that in the last (Third) annual report of the Texas 
Survey Mr. Cummins has described and figured an angiospermous 
plant, Sterculia drakei, which he found in the vicinity of Tucumcari 
mountain in beds supposed to be the e<iuivalent of the Comanche, but 
probably from some higher horizon than the Glen Rose. There is some 
evidence of a break, by non-conformity, above the Glen Rose, or "alter- 
nating beds,'' and below this break is what is known as the Trinity di- 
vision. This division has been considered the base of the Cretaceous, 
both by Prof. Hill, and by the present members of the Texas Survey, 
while Mr. Marcou stoutly maintains that the Trinity is upper Jurassic. 
Prof. Fontaine, after a description of the fossils, which are Equiseta, 
ferns, cycads and conifers, embracing 23 species, concludes as follows: 
"A typical Mesozoic flora is composed of only four elements. These 
are ferns, cycads, conifers and Equiseta. The flora of this type seems 
to have reached its culmination in the Jurassic, but many of its plants 
were continued, with diminishing numbers, through the lower Creta- 
ceous, ending with that epoch. The Wealden of different parts of the 
world appears to have been the fresh-water and marsh equivalent of the 
lower portion of the Neocomian, which, in its typical development, rep- 
resents the marine deposits of the Lower Cretaceous. The typical 
Wealden contains no element in addition to the four given above, but 
the lower Potomac formation, as seen in Virginia, appears to coincide 
in age with the greater part of the Neocomian, and this gives us, so far 
*Prof. Hill has given some facts ooiicfrniiig this collection, and the work of the lad- 
"W. M. Harvi \ ." \m. (Ieol.. X, 328. 
