464 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



conifers. The well-known "Pine-raft" at Brook Point in 

 the Isle of Wight and the Purbeck beds of Portland have 

 furnished numerous specimens of coniferous wood, with the 

 structural details more or less perfectly preserved. Prof. 

 Lester Ward has recently given some account of the 

 Wealden and Purbeck woods from English localities, and 

 states that all the fossil wood is of the Araucarian type. 1 

 This must refer, however, to such wood as Prof. Ward has 

 himself examined ; it is certainly not a statement which can 

 be accepted as covering all the known woods from the 

 Wealden- Purbeck strata. It is a matter of regret that no 

 one has so far made a careful examination of the silicified 

 woods from the Purbeck beds of Portland, nor to any great 

 extent of those from the Isle of Wight; Prof. Ward justly 

 remarks : "It is surprising that no one in England has 

 thought to describe or name these fossil woods, and I would 

 not have ventured to do this on the imperfect material in 

 my possession, if it had not seemed to be the only way in 

 which they could be brought into their systematic position 

 as an integral part of the fossil flora of the Wealden ". 2 Two 

 specimens of wood, one from Portland and the other from 

 the Isle of Wight, are described by Dr. Knowlton in Prof. 

 Ward's memoir ; both are referred to as Araucarioxylon, but 

 the preservation is far from satisfactory, as admitted by 

 Dr. Knowlton, and demonstrated by his figures. 3 Visitors 

 to Portland are probably familiar with a silicified stem, about 

 20 feet long, fixed to the front of a house in Fortune's Well 

 Street ; this stem was briefly referred to by Fitton in 1834, 

 and the same stem has now been named by Lester Ward 

 Araucarioxylon antediluvianum? the specific name being 

 chosen from that of the house against which the stem 

 is placed. It is to be regretted that the name Araucarioxylon 

 has been adopted without the evidence of internal structure ; 

 no one, so far as I am aware, has ever seen sections of this 

 particular stem. Prof. Ward has done good service in 

 reminding us of a strangely neglected duty, but the deter- 

 mination of the Purbeck and Wealden woods must be the 



1 Ward (4), p. 491. -Ibid. (4), p. 496. 



z Ibid., pp. 495, 496, pi. cii. 4 Ibid., p. 491. 



