170 The America7i Geolof/ist. March, isoo 
do, without nullifying almost all the paliieophytologic charac- 
ters, to the Jurassic opinion expressed by William B. Rogers 
and defended by Henry D. Rogers and James Hall.^ The papers 
by professor Zeiller and director Stur sufficiently repel this 
move backward toward an error given up, by Lyell, as far 
back as 1857, when on a visit to me at Zurich. ( Geology of 
North America, etc. p. 16.) 
The monograph of Dr. Newberry entitled : Fossil fishes 
and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and the 
Connecticut valley, 4to, Washington, 1888, received lately, 
November, 1889, although confined in the title to Connecticut 
and New Jersey, treats also in a special chapter, "Geological 
sketch," of the age of the coal beds of Richmond and North 
Carolina. As it was to be expected. Dr. Newberr}' tries to 
enforce as much as he can the conclusions and researches of 
professor Fontaine, and at the same time to diminish the 
value of the researches and conclusions arrived at by Emmons 
and myself. However, he goes too far when he says : "Many 
figures and descriptions of the remains of both plants and 
animals were also published by Prof. Ebenezer Emmons in 
his geological report of the midland counties of North Car- 
olina in 1856, but, though deservedly eminent as a geologist, 
professor Emmons had little acquaintance with palffiontology,. 
and this contribution rather increased than satisfied the desire 
for more thorough knoAvledge of the life of the Atlantic coast 
in Mesozoic times. No systematic collection nor thorough 
Btudy of the fauna or flora of the formation as a whole was 
attempted until about 1880, when Prof. W.M. Fontaine, of the 
University of Virginia^ began a careful review of the fossil 
plants of the Virginia and North Carolina Mesozoic coal basins. 
His results were published in a memoir on "The older 
Mesozoic flora of Virginia, which was issued in 1883, as vol- 
ume 4 of the monographs of the U. S. geological survey. This 
threw a ifood of light upon the vegetation of the Atlantic 
coast in the Mesozoic ages and established beyond question 
the parallelism of our New Red sandstone with the Keuper of 
Europe ; a matter which has been much debated with some- 
- Red sandstone of the Connecticut river valley, and the proof of its 
Oolitic or Liassic age. ("Proceed. Amer. Ass. Ad. Science," Washing- 
ton, 1854, p. 290. Tlae paper was not printed and has remained in 
manuscript to this day, which is very regretable, for in it we might 
have found a "flood of light." 
