384 The American Geologist. June, 1895 
REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
The (h'obxjji of Minnc-idia. Vol nine III, Part /, of ihe Final Report. 
Pakojttobxji/. N. H. Winctikll. State Geologist. (Hoy. 4to, i)p. i-lx.w, 
1-474. 41 plutt'S, 18!)5.) Professor Winchell announced, in one of his 
recent annual reports, tliat tliis volume of his final reports would em- 
brace onl,v a part of the paleoniological cha()ters, and that the others 
would have to appear througrh some different channel. Evidently, how- 
ever, there has been a happy change of plan, by which this part of 
volume IJI, witli one to follow, will compiehend accounts of all of the 
more important groups of fossils from the geological formations of the 
state, especially tho.se of the Silurian. Part I, like the other members 
of the series of final reports, is an elegant and tasteful book, sumptuous 
in its large quarto form and beveled boards, creditable in its press-work 
and superior in its lithography, especially in tliat of the 28 plates accom- 
panying Mr. Ulrich's memoir on Lower Silurian Bryozoa. The zinc- 
plates illustrating Messrs. Winchell and Schuchert's chapters on 
sponges, graptolites and corals, and on the P)rachiopoda are effective and 
serviceable. 
The book is introduced by an "Historical Sketch of Investigations of 
the Lower Silurian in the upper Mississi]ipi Valley," by Prof. WiNCHELii 
and Mr. E. (). Ui.Kicii. This is a valuable summary of all studies, in- 
cidental and protracted, of these formations in the state or its immedi- 
ate vicinity. "The paleontology of the Lower Silurian," say the 
authors, "as exemplified in the rocks of Minnesota and adjoining states, 
has been strangely overlooked and neglected." Were the case diflferent 
the stale geologist might not have felt called upon to produce the im- 
portant treatises in this book, and science will not, in tin- light of the 
present, complain of these omissions of the past. 
Chapter I is a description of the "Cretaceous Fossil Phmts from Min- 
nesota," by the late IjEO Lesqueheux. and is accompanied by two 
plates of leaves. A ctmsiderable portion of it is devoted to some general 
considerations pertaining to the distribution and derivation of the 
American Cretaceous flora, and is followed by descriptions of 28 species 
from Minnesota, (iof which are new, 14 occurring in the beds of Kansas 
and Nebraska, and (i in those of tireenland. 
Chapter II is entitled "The Microscopal Fauna of the Cretaceous in 
Minnesota, with additions from Nebraska and Illinois (Foraminifera. 
Radiolaria, Coccoliths, Rhabdoliths,)" by Anthony Woodwakd and 
Benjamin W. Thomas, it is prefaced by some rather inconsequent ob- 
servations on the importance of the microscope in paleontology and the 
significance of certain Devonian accumulations of spores to the oil-pro- 
duct of Ohio, followed by an account of the authors' preparative meth- 
ods. The descriptions of the species are, for the most part extremely 
brief, rarely more than a reproduction of the original descriptions, but 
the identifications bear evidence of having been made with extreme 
