DESGKIPTION OF SPECIES— CONIFERiE. 71 



attached fruits or seeds apparently of hard consistence, represented as tl)cy 

 are by a black compact silex, and pierced in the length by pores, or ducts, 

 continuous from the top to the base. These seeds, three to three and a half 

 centimeters long, six to eight millimeters broad, are quadrangular, somewhat 

 flattened, and therefore transversely rhomboidal, as seen from their cross- 

 section in tig. 1. From the outer surface, where the angles are rounded or 

 more obtuse, they pass down, through a white celluloso-vascular substance 

 wherein they are imbedded, to the axis c. In fig. 1 h, which represents part 

 of the reverse of the same specimen, the seeds appear shorter and separated 

 from the axis c by a zone, b, of the same whitish substance as that which 

 surrounds them. The intervals are as wide as the space filled by the seeds. 

 This white matter appears, when seen with a strong glass, composed from 

 very thin, parallel, linear filaments descending from the surface to the axis. 



Though I do not know any fruit presenting an evident likeness to this 

 remarkable fragment, I believe it referable to some species of Zaviiett. By 

 the form and disposition of its surface-scars, it is comparable to species of 

 An droit robus, a genus established by Schimper for the description of cylindrical 

 Cycadeous male cones formed of imbricated scales, bearing sessile anthers upon 

 their lower surface. By the position of the seeds, and also by their form and 

 size, it has a distant relation to Zamiostrobus gibbus, Reuss, represented by 

 a cone, which shows, in its section, oblong, obtuse seeds placed at right angles 

 to a cylindrical axis, with the tops appearing at the outside surface. Both 

 these cones are figured in the Atlas of Schimper's Pal. Vcget., pi. Ixxii, 

 figs. 1, 2, 14, 15. There is, however, a great difference in the large size and 

 in the characters of this silicified Strobile from the species mentioned above. 



Habitat. — Near Golden, Colorado, found by Dr. F. V. Hayden on the 

 surface soil, without connection to any stratum of rock. This, however, 

 does not, positively at least, force its reference to an antecedent formation, as 

 silicified trunks, especially of Palms, and rounded fragments of the same 

 kind, are abundantly found around Golden and in Colorado, together with 

 petrified and silicified trunks of trees still standing and in place. The 

 fragment of this cone has been apparently detached and drifted from the same 

 formation. 



CONIFERiE. 



The Conifers appear already in the Devonian, where remains of large 

 trunks have been found and referred from the characters of their internal 



