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smaller than those before mentioned, and, as I have said, show 
triradiate markings. 
Next let us consider to what order of vegetation the spores 
described are allied. Principal Dawson, F.R.S., of Montreal, in 
a Paper entitled* “Spore Cases in Coal,” has mentioned bodies 
found in shale of the Eran formation, at Kettle Point, Lake 
Huron, to which he gives the name “Sporangites.” Later on 
Dr Dawson identifies the spores discovered in Ohio by Professor 
OrrTon as similar to those found at Kettle Point. Still later, 
in a Paper read before the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, at Montreal, on “ Rhizocarps in the 
Paleozoic Period,” he suggests the possibility of “ Sporangites” 
being allied to Rhizocarps, but he leaves the matter open for 
further investigation. Mr Newton refers, in his Paper to 
which attention has been called, to the relation of the spores in 
Tasmanite and Australian White Coal to modern vegetation, 
and concludes as follows:—‘‘There can be no question as to 
the Tasmanite sacs being of vegetable origin, although at 
present we do not know the plant to which they belong: their 
size and form seem to indicate that they are more nearly allied 
to Lycapodiaceous macrospores than to anything else.” For 
my own part I prefer to give no opinion beyond that the larger 
spores from the Forest of Dean belong to a lower order of 
Cryptogamia. 
It may now be well just to summarise the geological position 
of the strata in which the spores referred to in this Paper 
occur. The Black Shales of Ohio, as I have said, are debatable . 
ground. The American Geological Survey consider them as 
part Carboniferous and part Devonian: the Erian formation 
of Kettle Point, Lake Huron, is looked upon as Upper Devonian. 
In the Forest of Dean the shales in which the spores occur are 
in part certainly Carboniferous and in part debatable ground. 
It is clear, then, that in America and in England, so far as the 
Forest of Dean Coal-field shows, there must have been a very 
similar state of conditions—a condition which allowed of the 
growth of allied vegetation. 
* “ Amer. Jour. Sci. ” 1871, and “Canadian Naturalist,” N.S., Vol. V. 
ee 
