28 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



FOSSIL PLANTS IN THE SILURIAN 

 FORMATION NEAR CARDIFF. 



By W. H. Harris. 



ABOUT two miles from Cardiff, just on the borders 

 of Monmouthshire, lies the little village of 

 Rumney, with the river from which it is named wind- 

 ing around the foot of the hill, and in its course dis- 

 covering the best exposure of the Silurian beds obtain- 

 able in this neighbourhood. In the hillside is a 



pure coal, but which break up into small fragments 

 having a cubical fracture, and like ordinary coal is 

 worthless for any practical purpose under the micro- 

 scope, perfect mineralisation being entirely destructive 

 to all structure. Occasionally these patches bear some 

 fanciful resemblance to a leaf or frond, but usually 

 they are mere films of an irregular size and shape. 



Associated with these remains, in some beds, are 

 numbers of the little spherical bodies ranging in 

 size from a dust shot to a small pea, which are known 

 by the name of Pachytheca spha:rica, Hooker. 



c- 



Fig. ii.—Pachythtca spharica. Hooker. X 30 diam. a, supposed point of attachment to parent plant; b, spherical bodies, 

 ( probably spores ; c, cavities containing fine particles of the enclosing rock. 



quarry which is occasionally worked, and furnishes a 

 very compact stone of a fine grit character, while the 

 overlying ])eds are of the usual friable nature and 

 break up more readily. Beautiful examples of ripple 

 marking were to be seen at one time in some of the 

 beds that had been exposed to the action of the 

 atmosphere, but they have been removed, owing to 

 the recent working of the quarry. 



In these soft beds are frequently found black patches 

 of carbonised vegetable materi.al, usually of a lustreless 

 and powdery character, while occasionally other patches 

 are bright and compact, being in fact converted into 



These are well preserved externally, but to obtain the 

 interior detail is a much more difficult mattej. 



Some years since, in company with my friend Mr. 

 Storrie, the present curator of the Cardiff Museum, we 

 were fortunate enough to discover a fragment of this 

 carbonised material, which at once gave indication of 

 being useful in giving an insight into the nature of the 

 material above described. On carefully sectioning the 

 fragment (for such it was), we were rewarded with a 

 slide or two of what is possibly the oldest vegetable 

 matter, showing the structure perfectly well preserved, 

 yet discovered, and although it cannot claim to be 



