128 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol, X. 



of vascular plants, with some resemblance to the Lycopodiaceoe. 

 Some of the fraoments are from 4 to 5 inches wide, and the 

 author had traced trunks some feet in leniith. He thou2:ht they 

 had drifted to the position where they were now found. Leaf- 

 markings licnerally are not preserved; but from the wrinklings 

 still remaining on some specimens, he thought it probable they 

 had been covered with leaves spirally arranged. Some fragments 

 show scars arranged irreixularly on the surface ; probably these 

 are fraiiraents of roots. The plant seems to some extent to com- 

 bine the ahiirdcters o{ Stigm'irid , Sigilhirla, and Lepidodendron. 

 Further details of tlie appearance of the specimens were given. 

 For one which appears to differ from all hitherto descibed he 

 proposes the name of BeDcijnii Cdrruthersii. 



2. '• Notes on Protot^xlfex and Pachi/thec i from the Denbigh- 

 shire Grits of Corwen, North Wales."' By Principal Dawson, 

 LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author stated that he had obtained specimens of the 

 Plant-remains from near Corwen, and that among them there 

 were two kinds, one dark, the other light-coloured. In the 

 former, the long cells and woody fibres are filled with rods of 

 transparent siliceous matter, and the walls represented by a thick 

 layer of carbon. The liii;hter kind consists of the siliceous rods 

 ulone, which are thus in the same state as the asbestos-like silici- 

 fied Coniferous wood of the Californian gold-gravels. In both 

 the siliceous rods show traces of the irregularly spiral ligneous- 

 linino- of the cell-walls. From these and other characters the 

 author refers the specimens to his genus Profotaxites, which, he 

 says, is not an Alga, but a woody terrestrial plant. The author 

 did not state that Prototaxites actually belonged to the Taxineae, 

 but that its fossilized wood showed a resemblance to that of some 

 fossil Taxineae. The remains discovered by Dr. Hicks differ, as 

 already reco.nized by Mr. Etheridge, from Prototfixites Loguni,. 

 Daws.; and the species may be named P. Hicksii. 



0^ pachytheca the author stated that he had specimens from 

 the Upper Silurian of New Brunswick, and these and the Welsh 

 specimens seem to belong to the genus JEtheotesta, Brongn., and 

 to be nearly allied to jE. devonica, Daws., from the Devonian of 

 Scotland. These fossils occur associated with Prototaxites, not 

 only at Corwen, but in the Upper Ludlow of England, in the 

 Upper Silurian of Cape Bon Ami, and in the Lower Devonian 

 of Bordeaux quarry opposite Campbellton in New Brunswick, 

 and as the author maintains ^"Etheotesta to be a seed, and Brong- 

 niart compared it with the seeds of the Taxineae, this may be 

 taken as additional evidence in favour of the Taxine or, at any 

 rate, Gymnospermatous nature of Protottrxltes. 



Published Dec. 30, 1881. 



