160 The American Geologist. March i890 
supply of wheat is short, and is now fetching $1.15 a birshel, 
while it costs but 90 cents at Blank. The wagons get 15 cents 
a bushel for hauling it, and each one carries 100 bushels." 
The young man was then dismissed and the senior partner 
turning to the old clerk said : "My friend, you see now why 
Mr. So-and-so has been promoted over you." 
This illustrates the demands, not of business men alone, but 
of geologists, and of everyone who employs others, either 
directly or indirectly, or who associates others with himself in 
his work. We all want men who can not only do the very 
best and most comprehensive scientific work, but who com- 
prehend their duties in all their relations, meet emergencies 
with proroipt and clear judgment, and save us and our ener- 
gies for other affairs. And we don't want to be obliged, in 
order to get out of a man what there is in him, to stand over 
him constantly and to direct his every effort. 
THE TRIASSiC FLORA OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 
By JxJLES Makcou, Cambridge, Mass. 
The publication of four papers, lately issued by Messrs. 
Fontaine, Zeiller, Stur and Newberry,' has brought back to 
my memory reminiscences and facts which may interest his- 
torically and critically those who may study more closely than 
has been done until now, the coal formation in the vicinity of 
Richmond and in general the whole Trias of North America. 
First period, 1834-1848. — In 1834 the learned English geol- 
ogist and mining engineer R. C. Taylor, an old pupil of the 
celebrated Strata Smith, the father of English geology, referred 
the coal series of Richmond — with some doubt however — to 
the old Coal Measures of the Carboniferous system of England 
and Wales. {Trans. Geol. Sac. Pennsylvania, vol. i, p. 275.) 
1 Contributions to the knowledge of the older Mesozoic flora of Virginia, 
by William M. Fontaine, 4to, Washington, 1883, issued only in Feb- 
ruary, 1885, U. S. Geol. Sur. Monographs vi. 
Sur. la presence, dans le gres bigarre, des verges, de I' Acrostichides 
rhombifolius, Fontaine, par Ren6 Zeiller, Bulletin Soc. Geol. France, 
3e serie, vol. xvi. p. 693, Paris, 1888. 
Die Lnnzer-{Lettenkohlens)- Flora in den "Older Mesozoic beds of the 
coalfield of eastern Virginia," by Diomys Stur, separatabdruck der 
Verhandlungen der k.k. geologischen Reicheanstalt, No. 10, 1888, 
Vieana. 
Foftsil fisJies and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and the 
Connecticut valley, by John S. Newberry, 4to, Washington, 1888, 
issued in October, 1889. U. S. Geol. Sur. Monographs, xiv. 
