Notes on Recent Literature. 
34 
Halle remarks that since Darwin’s time, with the exception of some 
investigations made by members of the Challenger expedition in 
1876, until the Swedish expedition visited the islands in 1901-1902, 
the geology of the islands has been almost entirely neglected. It 
was as a member of a smaller expedition undertaken by a few' 
Swedish naturalists in 1907 that Dr. Halle made the discoveries 
with which this note is primarily concerned. Professor Andersson, 
the leader of the Swedish Polar Expedition (1901-1902), collected 
a few imperfectly preserved fossil plants, one of which is described 
by Professor Nathorst 1 as a species of Phyllotheca, an Equisetaceous 
genus characteristic of the Glossopteris flora of India and the 
Southern Hemisphere and recorded also from a few Paleozoic and 
Mesozoic strata in Europe. The occurrence of this genus sug¬ 
gested the forecast, justified by Halle’s investigations, that other 
and more convincing evidence of the existence of the Glossopteris 
flora would probably be discovered in the Falkland islands. 
A considerable portion of the islands is occupied by Devonian 
rocks from which a few fragmentary plants have been obtained. 
Some small pieces figured by Halle bear a fairly close resemblance 
to Lepidodendron not hum Ung. and L. australe McCoy, Lower 
Carboniferous and Devonian species. A point of general interest 
in regard to the occurrence of a marine Devonian fauna in the 
Falkland islands is that a similar fauna has been recorded from 
South Africa, Australia, and the Argentine Republic. It would 
appear, however, that the Falkland fauna is distinctly more closely 
allied to that of South Africa than to the fauna of the far nearer 
Devonian areas in South America. Dr. Halle discovered Glosso¬ 
pteris leaves and other genera characteristic of the Glossopteris 
flora at several localities in east Falkland and at the south point of 
Speedwell island. The presence of these plants points to correlation 
of the Falkland strata with the Lower Gondwana beds of India and 
other countries in which the Glossopteris flora existed. 
Dr. Halle adopts the term Lafonian for the Falkland Gondwana 
series and from these beds he describes the following species :— 
Phyllotheca australis Brongn., represented by several imperfect 
pieces of stems and leaf-sheaths, in themselves hardly sufficient to 
establish the occurrence of the Glossopteris flora ; another species 
of Phyllotheca , compared by Nathorst with the Siberian P . 
deliquescens Schmal.; Glossopteris Browniana Brongn. and G. 
indica Schimp. the commonest plants in the series ; Glossopteris 
angustifolia Brongn. and G. damudica Feist.; Gangamopteris 
cyclopteroides Feist.; Dadoxylon lafoniense and some other less 
satisfactory forms too imperfect to be determined with certainty. 
As Halle points out, this flora is undoubtedly to be correlated with 
the Lower Gondwana flora of India, South Africa, Australia, and 
South America. It is customary in speaking of these southern 
plant-beds (in which the Glossopteris flora has been found) in terms 
of northern hemisphere stratigraphy to employ the comprehensive 
designation Permo-Carboniferous, as it is as a rule impossible to 
correlate them precisely with northern equivalents. The important 
point is that the rich flora from the Coal Measures of Europe and 
North America, which closely resembles that of the succeeding 
Permian period, is replaced in India and many regions south of the 
equator by one in which Glossopteris and Ganagmopteris are the 
most abundant genera, while most of the characteristic northern 
1 Nathorst, A. G., Bull. Geol. Instit. Upsala, Vol. VII, 1906. 
