317 



mits of which are on a level with the mouths of the cavities in which 

 they are contained. 



In the two specimens which Dr Fleming exhibited from the 

 Boghead parrot coal,* it clearly appeared that the rootlets commu- 

 nicated directly with the body or trunk, which in this case had been 

 fllled from within, with the pulpy matter of the coal, and had thus 

 entered the tubular rootlets which extended for some distance into 

 the argillaceous matter on the outside. Hence he inferred that the 

 flaggon-shaped bodies noticed by Dr Hooker were the lower por- 

 tions of the rootlets, not in the inside, but on the outside of the 

 stigmaria. 



The author next called the attention of the Society to a state- 

 ment in Dr Traill's paper on Bitumenite published in the last part 

 of the Transactions, vol. xxi., p. 10, by which it appeared that "A 

 very magnificent specimen of stigmaria in bitumenite (the name 

 given to the Boghead Parrot), as thick as the human body, had 

 been deposited by Dr Christison in the University Museum." The 

 unusual dimensions here assigned to stigmaria led the author to in- 

 spect the specimen, when it was found to be a sigillaria similar to 

 the one which he exhibited from the same coal. 



Dr Fleming next exhibited examples of the different quantities 

 of coal produced by stigmaria, sigillaria, favularia, calamite, stern- 

 bergia, and lepidodendron, observing that as these plants can fur- 

 nish coal-making materials separateli/, and as their remains exist 

 in coal, it cannot be denied that, in the aggregate, they would bo 

 equally productive ; nor, with these facts in view, could it be main- 

 tained that coal can only be formed from fir or allied woods. 



The author then proceeded to observe that in ordinary house- 

 hold coals, such as caking, cherry, or splint, each bed is stratified, 

 and the strata are separated at their partings by patches of fibrous 

 anthracite, as if formed from broken portions of woody matter. These 

 partings indicate a recurring intermittency of action, probably arising 

 from season changes during the accumulation of vegetable matter in 

 a form analogous to peat. The parrot coals, on the other hand, by the 

 absence of stratification (being merely laminated or slaty parallel with 



* This valuable coal was dug and sold from the lands of Boghead, and known 

 as the Boghead Parrot or Gas Coal, years before its existence in the lands of 

 Torbanebill was ascertained, and, therefore, as a designation, has the undoubted 

 claim of priority. 



VOL. III. 2 C 



