730 



be those of " sorely comminuted fucoids ;" the vegetable remains 

 of the Middle, " are at once more numerous and better defined ;" but 

 still they are the remains of fucoid plants : while the fossil flora of the 

 Lower Old Red apparently consists of but two species — the one, a 

 plant resembling a Lycopodium more than aught else, the other, a 

 smooth-stemmed fucoid. These two plants are figured as fossil im- 

 pressions upon a block of stone. A third form, however, is given 

 from a unique specimen found in a quarry at Skaill, in Orkney, which 

 greatly resembles a minute dichotomously branched Botrychium or 

 Asplenium. 



Mr. Miller gives a series of magnified figures, variously placed, 

 of the lignite referred to in his work on the ' Old Red Sandstone,' as 

 having been found in that formation at Cromarty. The nodule which 

 inclosed it was imbedded, with many others " half- disinterred by 

 the sea, in an icthyolitic deposit, a few hundred yards to the east of 

 the town of Cromarty, which occurs more than four hundred feet over 

 the great conglomerate base of the system." The nodule which con- 

 tained the lignite, contained also some " scales of Diplacanthus, a 

 scarce less characteristic organism of the lower formation ;" thus its 

 veritable position in the system is unfailingly indicated. A recent 

 and searching microscopic investigation of this interesting lignite has 

 revealed its true character, namely, that of a fragment of fossil coni- 

 ferous wood, of undoubted araucarian relationship. The following 

 quotation refers to the evidence furnished by this most interesting 

 organic remain. 



" The olive leaf which the dove brought to Noah established at 

 least three important facts, and indicated a few more. It showed 

 most conclusively that there was dry land, that there were olive trees, 

 and that the climate of the surrounding region, whatever change it 

 might have undergone, was still favourable to the development of ve- 

 getable life. And, farther, it might be very safely inferred from it, 

 that if olive trees had survived, other trees and plants must have sur- 

 vived also ; and that the dark muddy prominences round which the 

 ebbing currents were fast sweeping to lower levels, would soon present, 

 as in antediluvian times, their coverings of cheerful green. The olive 

 leaf spoke not of merely a partial, but of a general vegetation. Now, 

 the coniferous lignite of the Lower Old Red Sandstone we find 

 charged, like the olive leaf, with a various and singularly interesting 

 evidence. It is something to know, that in the times of the Coccos- 

 teus and Asterolepis there existed dry land, and that that land wore, 

 as at after periods, its soft, gay mantle of green. It is something also 



