6 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
large and numerous, while on the opposite side they are conspicuously 
smaller, being reduced to 3 mm., and less numerous. Among the latter 
may be noted numerous small, oval processes upwards of 1°5 X 2°5 
mm., representing emergent organs which have been cut off abruptly 
near the surface. That these processes represent emergent roots, and 
the longitudinal ridges represent the persistent bases of stipes which 
had become more or less closely knit together into an outer layer, 
seemed altogether probable, and this view was later confirmed not only 
by an examination of the internal structure, but by comparison with 
existing species in which precisely the same general appearances and 
relations of parts are to be met with. Attention being directed some- 
what more critically to the relations between the stele and the stipes, 
it was found (Plate I., fig. 1) that the latter are given off at an angle 
of about (10°) ten degrees. This is in all probability somewhat too 

FIG. 1.—OSMUNDITES SKIDEGATENSIS. X !/; 
low a value, in consequence of the compression to which the specimens 
must have been subjected before complete mineralization, and yet, 
from determinations in Osmunda regalis and O. cinnamomea, it is to 
be regarded as not very much below the actual divergence. 
The larger end of one of the most characteristic specimens was 
carefully cut and polished, when it was found that four separate regions 
of structure could be distinguished, (fig. 1). These consist of (1) 
a central pith, (2) a vascular cylinder or stele, (3) a zone but slightly 
carbonized and containing a few leaf traces, and (4) portions of a zone 
composed of highly carbonized structure and penetrated by many leaf 
traces. 
MICROSCOPIC STRUCTURE. 
The succession of parts noted above was obtained from the polished 
end of one of the stems. This was found necessary in consequence of 
the fact that in reducing slices to a condition of transparency, it was 
impossible to avoid the loss of external parts, so that of the four regions 
noted, only three appear in the microscopic preparation with any 
