8 



he said, resembles that of phosphorus. He regarded their light 

 as analogous to that of phosphorus. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson mentioned having heard Prof. Hare, of Phil- 

 adelphia, speak of experiments he had made on fire-flies. He 

 had placed them in oxygen gas, but did not find that their light 

 was increased thereby. Dr. J. thought the odor to resemble that 

 of ozone, the odor which accompanies the development of elec- 

 tricity, to which, in his opinion, the light of fire-flies was owing. 



Prof. Rogers remarked, that the point of combustion varied 

 very much in difTerent bodies. In some it was very low ; so that 

 it was difficult to pronounce in all cases that it did not exist. 



Mr. Teschemacher exhibited several fine specimens of the 

 fossil vesretation of the anthracite coal, with sections and 

 portions of the leaves of recent palms, part of them artifi- 

 cially carbonized, in order to show the analogy between 

 their structure ; particularly as respects the character of the 

 transverse vessels. One of the specimens exhibited the in- 

 ternal part of a portion of a very large leaf (?) lying parallel 

 with, and only one-fourth of an inch distant from a mass of 

 stem of Sigillaria, probably belonging thereto. 



He remarked, that the specimens on the table were but a 

 small portion of the new and undescribed forms of vegetation he 

 had discovered in the coal ; that in these the impression of form 

 or outline was not the most important evidence, for here was the 

 identical substance of which the plants were composed, carbon- 

 ized certainly, but nearly as perfect in the form of cell and ves- 

 sel, and in their relative position to each other, as when the 

 plants were in existence. He made various other observations 

 on the subject, and finally remarked, that although extremely 

 averse to theorizing in the present infancy of science, he could 

 not avoid stating his investigations thus far had inclined him to 

 the opinion of those geologists who considered the anthracite an- 

 terior to the bituminous coal formation. Beyond this, he thought 

 the result of these investigations might show the anthracite to 

 have undergone much more intense pressure than the bituminous 

 coal, and to be composed chiefly of large non-resinous acotyledo- 

 nous and monocotyledonous plants. That the subsequent appear- 



