230 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



interior, then the diameter of the original stem would 

 probably have been from eighteen inches to two feet, 

 and the height from sixty to eighty feet. It is 

 however extremely improbable that the calamite 

 ever attained to these dimensions, and therefore we 

 must seek some such explanation as that afforded by 

 the above theory of Mr, Carruthers. I have a 

 specimen of a sandstone cast, lying before me in my 

 study, which is nearly four inches in diameter. It 

 was about four yards in length when extracted 

 from the quarry, and was incomplete at each end. 

 It did not seem to vary much in thickness ^in all 

 the four yards of length obtained, and even on 

 the supposition that the specimen represents the 

 original thickness of the woody cylinder, and not 

 merely that of the pith, the plant when living must 

 have attained a height of from forty to fifty feet. 

 But the great majority of calamites found in our 

 coal balls are small plants not much thicker than the 

 stems of our horsetails, though a| few are found with 

 stems of from half an inch to an inch in thickness, and 

 occasionally fragments of much larger stems are met 

 with. 



As stated above, the real original external form of 

 the calamite was plain and smooth and not ribbed 

 and jointed, as seen in sandstone casts. In beds of 

 shale we sometimes come across them preserved in 

 their original form, but they are generally compressed 

 to a flat ribbon-like form, very difficult to extract, 

 and so uninteresting that few collectors care to have 

 them. I well recollect my first acquaintance with 

 them. Some years ago, during one of my geological 

 excursions to the Yoredale strata of Hebden Bridge, 

 I came across a gang of men engaged in digging 

 a trench for the foundations of a weir across the bed 

 of the stream in Horse-bridge Clough, There was a 

 bed of shale exposed of about nine feet in depth, which 

 was literally one mass of vegetable remains. Ferns in 

 a wonderful variety formed the main bulk of the fossils, 

 but associated with them were a great number of 

 other' fossil plants, such as Calamites, Asterophyllites, 

 Lepidodendrons, Sigillaria, Lepidostrobus, &c. This 

 was a great surprise to me, for I had not expected to 

 find such a bed of vegetable remains anywhere out- 

 side of the coal-measures, and these Yoredale Strata 

 which have yielded such a large and beautiful group 

 of fossil shells, such as Nautili, Goniatites, Orthocera, 

 Aviculo-pectens, &c., were thus rendered still more 

 interesting on account of the discovery of these 

 vegetable remains. Among the rest of the plants were 

 some very curious objects which took me some time 

 to make out as to what class they belonged; they 

 were long narrow black plant-like fossils which shone 

 like polished ebony, and totally unlike any fossils I 

 had ever before met with. They were of various 

 sizes from a few feet to as many yards in length, and 

 as I stood and watched the men working for some 

 time I saw them lying athwart the bed in all direc- 

 tions looking like, as the men remarked, so many 



black fossil snakes. Had they been ribbed and 

 jointed, instead of being plain and smooth, there 

 could have been no doubt of their being calamites, but 

 as it was, they were an enigma that I could not solve. 

 Some time afterwards I came across a similar fossil 

 from the coal-measures, but in this case the black 

 shining coating had been turned into coal, and upon 

 carefully cleaning it off I found underneath the usual 

 ribbed and jointed appearance of a true calamite. I 

 had all along suspected that tlie curious Hebden 

 Bridge fossils were calamites, and this fresh discovery 

 appeared to confirm that idea. 



The calamite in its original state having thus 

 being proved to have been smooth externally, and not 

 ribbed and jointed as seen in ordinary sandstone 

 casts, its supposed affinity to the reeds and horsetails 

 on that ground is valueless. "Yet, it is singular 

 to find," observes Mr. Carruthers, in his lecture on 

 the " Botany of a Coal-mine," " that, after all, the 

 structure of its fruit proves that it really did belong to 

 the family to which at first, though on false observa- 

 tion, it had been referred," 



Since the above paper was written, our knowledge 

 of fossil botany has been greatly increased, and the 

 fruit which Mr. Carruthers then so confidently as- 

 sumed to have belonged to calamites has been shovrn 

 to have belonged to a different family altogether. 



The fruit here referred to was the Calamostackys 

 Binncyana of Williamson, who has shown that it is 

 not, and could not have been the fruit of calamites, 

 on account of its solid axis and spirally-arranged 

 leaves. From the triangular form of the axis and 

 other points of agreement, he has further shown that 

 it is the fruit of Asterophyllites or of Sphenophyllum. 

 In his eleventh memoir, " On the Organization of the 

 Fossil-plants of the Coal-measures," quite recently 

 published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, 

 Professor Williamson has described a good specimen 

 of Calamostackys Binneyana, found by John Aitken, 

 Esq., in our Halifax material, containing both macro 

 and microspores, tlie microsporangia occupying the 

 upper, and the macrosporangia the lower part of the 

 strobilus — thus proving most conclusively that this is 

 a true lycopodiaceous fruit. It is M'ell known that 

 the fruit of the modern equisetacece has only one 

 kind of spores, and such was also the case with the 

 ancient calamites. Several sjjecimens of the true 

 calamitean strobilus have been found in the Oldham 

 and Halifax coal strata. The structure of this fruit 

 agrees very closely with that of the modern equi- 

 setacere. It differs from Calamostackys Binncyana \\\ 

 having no vascular axis, but has a hollow cylinder, 

 like the stem of a calamite, and has only one set of 

 bracts, which contain the sporangia, and are arranged 

 in verticels. 



Many other kinds of fruits besides Calamostackys 

 Binneyana have been described as Calamitean, under 

 the names of Volkmania, Huttonea, Aphyllostachys, 

 &c., but all these, with the exception of one described 



