Page:The Living Flora of West Virginia and The Fossil Flora of West Virginia.pdf/17

Rh accumulation. These plants are of course all extinct at the present time, and only a few of their diminutive relatives and descendants still survive in our ferns, rushes, and club-mosses, since the Carboniferous Flora herein described lived before the day of flowering plants, birds and mammals had dawned upon the earth. Dr. David White, one of the most distinguished of paleobotanists, has listed these interesting fossil remains in the relation which they sustain to the well-known Coal beds of the State, and hence as the fossil plants of each great coal horizon contain in their entirety some types and facies not found in connection with any other geological horizon, the publication in question cannot fail to prove of great economic value as an aid in the correlation of our numerous important coal horizons. The preparation of each part of this volume by the authors of the same has required an immense amount of careful and painstaking labor, all of which has been generously donated to the State Geological Survey by the distinguished authors to whom not only the Survey but all the people of the State are under lasting obligations for their disinterested and most valuable services.

This volume together with Volume V on Forestry and Wood Industries of the State by A. B. Brooks, published under date of February 1st, 1911, will furnish a very fair account of the plant life of the State, and in due time it is hoped finally to add a volume on the animal life of the State, as provided in the scheme of general publications contemplated by the Survey.

Very respectfully,

I. C. WHITE,.

Morgantown, W. Va., June 1st, 1913.