I.—On an Underscribed Cone from the Carboniferous Beds of Airdrie, Lanarkshire

Extract

Small disc-shaped bodies have frequently been noticed in coal and the accompanying shales. Specimens were figured by Mr. Prestwich in 1840, in his paper on the Geology of Coalbrook Dale (Geol. Trans., Second Series, vol. v., tab. xxxviii., ff. 8, 8a); and Professor Morris, who described Mr. Prestwich's fossils, characterises them as ‘capsules’ of his Lepidodendron longibracteatum. But it does not appear from either the illustrations of the two spikes of his species, or from the letter-press, that he had found the capsules associated with the reniform thecæ of the spikes. Prof. Balfour has also figured and described similar bodies in a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1854. He found them in the ‘splint-coal’ of Fordel, near Inverkeithing, in Fife. He says, ‘Besides Sigillarias and Stigmarias, we also detect in the Fordel Coal peculiar rounded organisms which have the appearance of seeds. Dr. Fleming informs me that similar bodies have been observed by him in coal, and that he exhibited them to Mr. Witham about twenty years ago. They have also been seen by Dr. Fleming in Lochgelly and Arniston “parrot,” and in the coal at Boghead; and from having observed them in “cherry,” “splint,” and “cannel” coals, he is disposed to consider them as a somewhat common feature. I have seen them in coal from Miller Hill, near Dalkeith, as well as in the coalfrom Fife. They appear to be certainly allied to the fructification of the Lycopodiaceæ of the present day, more particularly to that form of it which consists of two valves placed in apposition and containing what is called Lycopode-powder. Theae and like bodies I, therefore, consider to be the sporangia or spore-cases of some plant allied to Lycopodium, perhaps Sigillaria. The valves present under the microscope a reticulated surface, and minute granular matter seems to be attached to the inner surface.’—(Edin. Trans., vol. xxi. p. 191).