on Fossil Fruits from the Chalk formation. 541 



answer it in the negative. He regards the beds at Cumledge, de- 

 scribed by Mr. Milne as such, as old red, and considers the soft red 

 clays and sands at Lintlaw, derived from the disintegration of the 

 old red sandstone, referred by Mr. Milne to the new red sandstone, 

 to be of undetermined age, from want of sufficient evidence in the 

 absence of organic remains. The exact position of the greywacke 

 strata of the Lammermuirs is for the same reason indeterminate. 

 The author concludes by pointing out the great gap which occurs 

 between the greywacke and the upper division of the old red sand- 

 stone in Berwickshire, the middle and lower divisions of the old red 

 and the whole of the Silurian system being deficient. Another cir- 

 cumstance worthy of remark is the absence of any formations more 

 recent than the coal-measures, if we except alluvial deposits and the 

 undetermined red strata formerly mentioned. 



February 1, 1843. — A paper was read " On the Tertiary Strata of 

 the Island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusets." By Charles 

 Lyell, Esq., V.P.G.S., &c* 



Letter from J. Hamilton Cooper, Esq., to Charles Lyell, Esq. 

 V.P.G.S., " On Fossil bones found in digging the New Brunswick 

 Canal in Georgia*. 



" Description of some Fossil Fruits from the Chalk-formation of 

 the South-east of England." By Gideon Algernon Mantell, LL.D., 

 F.R.S., &c. 



The fruits described are three in number, viz. — 



1. Zamia Sussexiensis, Mantell. — From the greensand. A cone 

 allied to the Zamia macrocephala, a greensand fossil from Kent, 

 figured in Lindley and Hutton's 'Fossil Flora,' pi. 125, from which 

 it differs in form and in the number, size, and shape of its scales, 

 which are more numerous, smaller and more oblong than in the 

 Kentish species. It is five inches long, and at the greatest circum- 

 ference measures six inches. It was found about two years ago in 

 an accumulation of fossil coniferous wood in a sand-bank at Selmes- 

 ton, Sussex, at the junction of the Shanklin sand with the gault. 

 Dr. Mantell having sent a cast of the only specimen found to M. 

 Adolphe Brongniart, that distinguished botanist suggested that it 

 might be either the stem of a young cycadaceous plant or the fruit 

 of a Zamia, but the situation and small size of the stalk at the base 

 and the appearance of the scales, induce Dr. Mantell to refer it to 

 the latter. 



2. Abies Benstedi, Mantell. — From the greensand near Maidstone, 

 Kent. A beautiful cone found by Mr. W. H. Bensted in the quarry 

 in which the remains of the Iguanodon were discovered in 1834, 

 where it was associated with Fucus Targionii, and some indetermi- 

 nate species of the same genus ; stems and apparently traces of the 

 foliage of endogenous trees allied to the Dracana (Sternbergia), and 

 of trunks and branches of Coniferee. The wood occurs both in a 

 calcareous and siliceous state. The cone found is in every respect 

 such a frait as the trees to which the wood belonged might have 

 borne. It bears a close resemblance to a fossil from the greensand 



* Abstracts of these papers have appeared in the present volume; see 

 p. 518, note. 



