Bulletin 3. The flora of the Raritan Formation, 1911 - State of New ...

I. INTRODUCTION.
The cla.ys "of New Jersey coristitute the basis of a most important
element in the State's mineral wealth'and have long furnished
the raw material for a variety of industries, and given
" employmeht toa large force Of labor, botl{ skilled, and u_s}di!ed.
"The most conspicuous clay deposits inthe State are those known
as the Raritan, or Amboy, clays. Very early they attracted the
attention of the State Geological Survey, and we find considerable
space devoted to them in the Geology o{ New Jersey, published
in I868, in the Clay Report of 1878, and in the various
later reports.
The only comprehensive treatment of the flora of the Raritan
formation is that o{ Pro{. Newberry 1, published posthumously
in 1896, his active work on it having been stopped by failing
health in the fall of I89O. In the interval of twenty-one years
which has elapsed, both geology and paleobotan,y have made
prodigious progress in this country, and it is no discredit to the
pioneer workers that revision becomes a necessity. One oi the
imperfections of Prof• Newberry's work, along with that o{ his
colaborers in the field of paleontology, was their neglect in
stating the precise localities an6 horizons from which their
specimens were collected• It has been possible to supply some
of these deficiencies in frequent visits to the various pits, others
remain as Pro{. Ne\vberry left them.
Considerable material collected by the U. S. Geological Shrvey
has furnished a nttmber o¢ additions to the flora, for which
ackno\_'ledgement is gratefully made at this point. All of Prof.
Newberry's types are in the museum of the New York Botanical
Garden, where they are well arranged and easily accessible. The
author's thanks are clue Dr. HolIiek, the curator of the paleo-
Newberry, The Flora of the Amboy Clays, Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, VoL
• XXVI (1895), 1896 .
(7)
NEW JERSEY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY