BY T. W. EDGEWORTH DAVID. 425 



these layers. After prolonged soaking, however, in water, fragments 

 of the clay shale can be so far softened as to admit of individual 

 leaves being separated out. When isolated and mounted on glass 

 slips for the microscope they are seen to be quite translucent, 

 having a reddish-brown colour, and showing their venation very 

 clearly. On some of the leaves dark oval-shaped bodies may be 

 observed, which in one or two cases appear to be symmetrically 

 arranged on the leaves, and may possibly represent fructification. 

 Mr. R, Etheridge, jun., however, after a careful examination of 

 these specimens has come to the conclusion that the evidence on 

 this point is at present insufficient. From the absence of a well 

 defined midrib in some of the specimens, he thinks them allied to 

 Gangmno'pteris rather than to Glossopteris. The occurrence of 

 Gangamopteris has not, as far as the author is aware, been 

 recorded hitherto from the Greta Coal- Measures. 



Several of the Glossopteris leaves, when in situ in the clay shale, 

 were observed to be rolled up longitudinally. This, however, was 

 evidently due to the mechanical action of the water and mud in 

 which they were deposited, for this phenomenon was accidentally 

 imitated artificially by swilling the water gently to and fro in the tub 

 in which the Glossopteris-hea,rmg clay shale was being macerated, 

 many leaves which had previously been lying flat, becoming rolled 

 up in the same manner as the natural specimens. It is hoped that 

 a sufficient quantity of these leaves may be obtained for chemical 

 analysis. 



Although this appears to be the first recorded instance in Aus- 

 tralia of fossil plants occurring in this peculiar state of preserva- 

 tion in rocks so old as the Permo-Carboniferous, similar phenomena 

 have already been observed by the Rev. J. Milne-Curran, F.G.S.,* 

 and Mr. T. Whitelegge.f In the paper referred to Father Curran 

 recorded the discovery by himself of pinnules and leaflets of 

 Alethopteris and Thinnfeldia in a similar state of preservation to 

 that above described in layers of sandy shale in the Ballimore 



• P.L.S.N.S.W., 1884, IX., pp. 251, 252. 

 t Ibid., 1885, X., p. 62. 



