8 FOSSIL MARINE PLANTS LESQUEREUX. 



Of these shining scales, observable as well upon the surface or cortical 

 envelopes of the branches as upon the stone whereupon they are super- 

 posed, I can not see any in the matter filling the stems. The stride ai-e 

 mostly regular and parallel, and are in some places here and there in- 

 flated, obliquely liexuous or serpentine, much like those covering the 

 surface of Oyrolithes, which are beautifully figured by Saporta in his 

 work on the problematic organisms {Op. cit.^ pis. V and vi). These 

 wrinkles, according to this author, represent in relief a netting of the 

 cells composing the outer cortex of tlie tube, or the inner cavity remained 

 empty by the disappearance of a vegetable organism of which the char- 

 acter is unknown; for the substance filling the tube is homogeneous, 

 or like that of the stone in which the organisms are embedded. To 

 this ingenious explanation of the origin of the irregular striae observed 

 upon the surface of cylindrical bodies as inference of their vegetable 

 origin, may be added the presence and peculiar position of small short 

 stem-like bodies, vertically upraised 6 to 8™" above the surface of the 

 stone, by the side of the large prostrate cylindrical remains and evi- 

 dently of the same nature. Two of these vertical branches are seen in 

 Fig. 3a. They are slightly enlarged toward the base as passing to ra- 

 dicular appendages; their surface is obscurely marked by strife, and 

 horizontally, G to 8'"™ above the base, their top transversely cut is trun- 

 cate, marked by a scar like that produced by the rupture of a small 

 branch. 



As tending still to evince the vegetable origin of the fossil fragments 

 considered here, it may be remarked that if the bodies, which are ex- 

 actly cylindrical and apparently contiguous only by a narrow rim to 

 the flat surface upon which they are superposed, are represented in 

 their original position, neither their petrification by penetration of 

 solid materials nor their construction by animal agency, the work it- 

 self, the procuring of matter for the composition of the cortex of a 

 tube, can be considered possible. 



W per contra the specimen represents the lower face of a shale uj)on 

 which is seen in relief the cast, molded upon the impression of objects 

 of which the original matter has been, after its destruction, replaced 

 by stony substances, how explain the impression of a complete cyl- 

 inder and its repieseutation in relief or as a cast entirely free of the 

 surrounding matter ? 



The fossil fragments described above have some likeness, at least in 

 form and size, to those of Cylindrites rimosus Heer, Fl. Foss. Helv., p. 

 115, pi. XLVi, fig. 9. The figures of this species represent cylindrical 

 molds of various sizes, more or less flexuous, not regularly or distinctly 

 striate. Their position relative to the stone on which they occur is not 

 indicated in any way. Heer remarks only that the organized sub 

 stance of the remains is gone and that their surface, which is narrowly 

 ribbed lengthwise, appears rimose or cracked. Concerning tlie genus 

 Cylindrites of Goeppert, Schimper says that it was established upon 



