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two species of Zalacca, one of Dcemonorops, one of Metroxylon. 

 He also exhibited what he supposed a new vegetable acid from 

 the fruit of Metroxylon by boiling in water, saturating with lime, 

 and precipitating by sulphuric acid, — repeated washing and crys- 

 tallization ; — it was pure white, and had characters differing from 

 any he knew of. He had the alkaline salts in process of crystal- 

 lization. The chief object of his exhibition of these Palms was 

 to show several agreements between them and the vegetation of 

 the coal period, of which he exhibited specimens in the anthracite 

 coal itself. He observed, that in the most recent work on this 

 subject, Unger's Synopsis, published in 1845, the only species of 

 Palms noted as occurring in the coal, are Flabellaria lorassi' 

 folia, Zeugophyllites calamoides, and Paleospathe Sternbergii ; 

 others have been found in bituminous shales, but the largest part 

 of the fossils, considered as Palms, have been found in much 

 later formations. Noeggerathia of Sternberg is considered by 

 Unger as a Neuropteris, or one of the Neuropterides, while 

 Brongniart's latest opinion, 1846, places it amongst the Pinus 

 tribe ; to this latter, there is in his opinion, much objection. He 

 thought he could show that the Palms formed a more consider- 

 able portion of the coal vegetation than had been supposed. 



On six or eight specimens of the coal the vegetable fossils 

 were interspersed with round concavities, from a very small size 

 to a quarter of an inch diameter, some of them surrounded by 

 stellate fissures and filled with a black powder ; he had long 

 considered these as a fungus growth ; on the recent specimens 

 he exhibited precisely the same appearances, so that no doubt 

 could exist of the correctness of this opinion. 



He observed, that although the existence of this fungus on the 

 recent palm is no distinct proof of the fossil plant being a palm, 

 as the same fungus may also vegetate on GraminecB, CalamitecB, 

 or Filices, yet as the fossil stem and its structure resembles that 

 of the palm, this evidence is of some weight. He then exhib- 

 ited other much larger and more extensive stellate appearances 

 on the fossils, each with its nucleus, which he thought also be- 

 longed to the fungus tribe, particularly as in one specimen they 

 were connected together. 



He then exhibited many specimens of fossil vegetables in coal, 

 containing horizontal fissures across the vegetable structure, 



