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Stigmarie, the latter in such abundance as to appear to form 
the bulk of the coal. In some places almost all the plants 
were Calamites or other ferns.” 
Sir Witt1am Dawson, of Montreal, who stands second to 
none as a specialist in Carboniferous Geology, referring to the 
plants which have contributed the vegetable matter of the 
coal says,* ‘“‘these are principally the Sigillarie, with Cordaites 
Ferns, and Calamites. With these, however, are intermixed 
remains of most of the other plants of the period, contributing, 
in an inferior degree, to the accumulation of the mass. This 
conclusion is confirmed by facts derived from the associated 
beds, as, for instance, the prevalence of Stigmarve in the 
. underclay, and of Sigillarie and Calamites in the roof-shales 
and erect forests.” Mr Carrutuers expressed his views on the 
subject in the course of some remarks on a paper which I read 
at the Geological Society during the early part of this year.+ 
“Coal-seams,” said Mr Carrururers, “are the remains of 
forests which grew upon swampy ground, and were subsequently 
covered by clay.” The views as expressed by Gorrert, Dawson 
and CarrutTuers, are fairly typical of those generally enter- 
tained on the subject of the origin and formation of coal. In 
1870, however, Professor Huxtry announced in the pages of the 
Contemporary Review that coal was simply the sporargia and 
spores of certain plants, other parts of which have furnished 
the carbonized stems and the mineral charcoal, or have left 
their impressions on the surface of the layer. This, however, 
was not the first time that the spores of plants had been 
detected in coal. Professor Morrison, in a note appended to 
Mr Prestwicu’s papert{ on the Geology of Coalbrook Dale, 
called attention to the occurrence of what he considered to be 
spore cases of plants in coal. The late Professor J. H. Batrour 
noticed similar bodies, and referred to them in the Transactions 
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 1854, and in the same 
volume Professor J. H. Bennett figured sections of coal in 
* Acadian Geology, 3rd Edition, p. 471. 
+ Quart. Jour. Geol. Society, Vol. XL., p. 60, Proc. 
+ Geol. Trans., 2nd Ser., Vol. V. 
