Section IV, 1922 [159] Trans. R.S.C. 



A New Genus of Characeae and New Merostomata from the Coal 

 Measures of Nova Scotia^ 



By W. A. Bell, Ph.D. 



Presented by E. M. Kindle, A.B., M.Sc, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1922) 



Introduction 



The plants and animals that lived in Coal Measures time make 

 a special appeal to our imagination. For the first time in geological 

 history we have records that enable us to picture large areas of land 

 not as barren rock masses whose nakedness we fain would cover had 

 we but the knowledge, but as living landscapes in which broad mean- 

 dering rivers gleam amidst forests that are strange indeed to modern 

 eyes, but that rival ours in majesty of form and size, and in potential 

 importance to mankind. 



Industrial exploitation of the long buried debris of these ancient 

 forests for their use as fuel, has been the chief aid in satisfying our 

 curiosity about the relationships and habits of numerous individual 

 members of the Coal Measures plant and animal societies. Finally 

 our knowledge has become sufficiently complete to enable us to recog- 

 nize a succession in time of terrestrial dynasties during the Coal 

 Measures and to apply this wisdom to the furtherance of new exploit- 

 ation for coal. 



The present paper is a brief description of several forms of this 

 ancient life from the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia, whose remains are 

 rare. The first to be considered are minute fruit bodies of algae-like 

 plants that were found by Dr. A. O. Hayes in the shale roof of a five- 

 foot seam of coal at the St. Rose mine, Inverness county. They 

 record the earliest known occurrence of the Charophyta or stone 

 worts — a phylum that embraces the recent Chara, common in fresh- 

 water ponds, lakes, pools, and brackish water lagoons of to-day. In 

 the same beds Dr. Hayes was fortunate enough to discover a carapace 

 of a Schizopod crustacean, somewhat better preserved than the 

 specimen that was collected by Sir J. W. Dawson from the Joggins. 

 These two species come from the lower part of the Coal Measures. 



^Published by permission of the Director, Geological Survey, Ottawa. 



