On Spore-cases in Coals. 91 



some time. While, however, admitting the great interest and im- 

 portance of Prof. Huxley's observations, and prepared to contribute 

 some additional illustrations of the occurrence of spore-cases in coal, 

 I think it well to direct attention anew to the actual composition of 

 the substance, as proved by its mode of occurrence, and illustrated 

 by my own extensive series of observations on the coals of Nova 

 Scotia and Caj)e Breton, including the series of eighty-one seams 

 exposed at the South Joggins, the whole of which I have examined 

 in situ and under the microscope. 



The occurrence of bodies supposed to be spore-cases in coal, is, 

 as Prof, Huxley states, no new discovery ; but in reality these may 

 be said to be the first organisms recognized by any microscopic 

 observer of coal — that is, if all the clear spots and annular bodies 

 seen in slices of coal are really spore- cases. They were noticed by 

 Morris as early as 1836, and they had been observed and described 

 long before by Fleming in Scotland, Goeppert mentioned and 

 figured them in his ' Treatise on Coal ' in 1848, Balfour described 

 them in 1859 as occurring in Scottish coals, and Quekett figured 

 them in his account of the Torbane Hill mineral in the same year. 

 In 1855 the latter microscopist showed me in London slices exhi- 

 biting round bodies of this kind, very similar to those now described 

 by Huxley; but at that time I regarded them as concretionary, 

 though Prof, Quekett was disposed to consider them organic, Mr. 

 Carruthers has summed up most of these facts in his account of his 

 genus Flemingites in the ' Geological Magazine ' for October, 1865. 

 The subject has also attracted the attention of microscopists in con- 

 nection with the Tasmanite, or " white coal " of Tasmania, which is 

 composed in great part of the spore-cases of ferns. 



I suppose that the oldest spore-cases known are those described 

 by Hooker, from the Ludlow formation of the Upper Silurian ; but 

 these, if really spore-cases, are different in structure from those or- 

 dinarily found in the coal formation, more especially in the great 

 thickness of their walls, and I am not aware that they have any- 

 where been found in considerable quantities. 



The oldest bed of spore-cases known to me, is that at Kettle 

 Point, Lake Huron. It is a bed of brown bituminous shale, burn- 

 ing with much flame, and under a lens is seen to be studded with 

 flattened disk-like bodies scarcely more than a hundredth of an inch 

 in diameter, which under the microscope are found to be spore-cases, 

 slightly papillate externally, and with a point of attachment on one 

 side and a sHt more or less elongated and gaping on the other. I 

 have proposed for these bodies the name Sporangites Huronensis. 

 When slices of the rock are made, its substance is seen to be filled 

 with these bodies, which, viewed as transparent objects, appear yel- 

 low Hke amber, and show little structure, except that the walls can, 

 in some cases, be distinguished from the internal cavity, and the 



VOL. VI. H 



