Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

last year a valuable report on the Mesozoic Plants of Portugal. A summary of this last work, in connection more particularly with its bearing on the palæobotany of North America, from the pen of Professor Lester F. Ward, a fellow laborer in the United States, has lately appeared in "Science"; and perhaps with the exception of those of his great rival, Heer of Zurich, who passed away before him, no European works on the botany of the Mesozoic period are more frequently referred to than those of Saporta.

Though a specialist in the floras of the later geological periods, he could enter with enthusiasm into the whole history of the vegetable kingdom, in a manner at once elaborate, careful, and attractive to general readers, and with an enlightened grasp of the succession of plants in time, and of their relations to the various changes of climate and geography in the different periods. This is remarkable in his popular work, Le Monde des Plantes," which goes over the whole field of geological botany, is written in a clear and vivid style, and illustrated with geological maps and very clever restorations of the forests of different periods.

His memoirs also cover a wide geographical range, as specimens from many regions were submitted to him, and he was always ready, in the kindest and most genial spirit, to give the benefit of his advice and information to his fellow laborers in every part of the world. His work was characterized by much discrimination and care, and by a judicious attention to the geological horizons of the plants he studied, but, like many other palæobotanists, he was occasionally carried away by his enthusiasm, so as to recognize as plants mere imitative markings. This was especially the case in the controversies in which he took part respecting the nature of certain markings on rocks whose algal nature had been maintained by Delgado and others, while to Natherst, and to palæontologists generally who were familiar with the tracks of animals and the imitative tracings on the surfaces of aqueous deposits, they were of animal or of inorganic origin.

In conjunction with Professor Marion, Saporta published a work on the Evolution of Plants, which forms three volumes of the French International Library of Science. It abounds with curious information of a very suggestive character, but was perhaps too ambitious in the present state of knowledge. This the authors frankly admit, stating, in conclusion, that they can but point out a few landmarks to their successors, "who may decipher the inscriptions of which we can but spell out some letters."

But though an evolutionist, Saporta was by no means an agnostic.

He saw in the grand succession of vegetable forms a great and profound design, related to the inorganic world and its mutations on the one hand, and to the animal kingdom on the other. He sums up this conclusion in his "Le Monde des Plantes" in the following words, which may serve as an example of his style and of his habit of thought in the wider problems of his science :

"Mais, si l'on remonte de phénomène en phénomène plus haut que les apparences mobiles et contingentes, il semble que l'on aboutisse forcément à quelque chose d'entier, d'immuable et de supérieur, qui serait l'expression première et la raison d'être absolu de toute existence, en qui se résumerait la diversité dans l'unité, eternel problème que la science ne saurait résoudre, mais qui se pose de lui-même devant la conscience humaine. Là serait la vraie source de l'idéal religieux; de cette pensée se dégagerait d'une façon lumineuse, cette conception de notre âme à laquelle nous appliquons instinctivement le nom de Dieu.”

Saporta was Correspondant de l'Institut de France, a Foreign Member of the Geological Society of London, a Foreign Honorary Member of our Academy since 1885, and an honorary or corresponding member of many other societies on both sides of the Atlantic. 1895. J. WILLIAM DAWSON.

Three Resident Fellows have been returned to the list of Associate Fellows on account of removal from the Commonwealth, and one Associate Fellow has been transferred to the list of Resident Fellows.

The Academy has received an accession of eight Resident Fellows, two Associate Fellows, and five Foreign Honorary Members.

The Roll of the Academy corrected to date includes the names of 195 Fellows, 95 Associate Fellows, and 67 Foreign Honorary Members.

MAY 9, 1895.