OF LOWER GREEXSAXD PLANTS. 19 



" Fossil Vegetables of the Tilgate Forest " in the Transactions 

 of the Geol. Soc. 1824, the following note may be of interest. 

 Gothan (1910), referring to the name Weichselia reticulata, 

 attempted to clear up the confusion which dates back to 1836, 

 when Brongniart attributed the names in this paper to Mantell. 

 He confirmed Lester Ward's view that the authors were Stokes 

 & Webb ; but in the course of my work I felt that the mystery 

 had not been entirely unravelled, because in 1827, in his volume 

 on the Fossils of the Tilgat'e Forest, we find Mantell using the 

 same plates as illustrate the Geol. Trans, paper, and using them 

 as though they were his own. The Secretary of the Geological 

 Society kindly allowed ine to see the original hand- written 

 Minutes of Council for the years concerned, and the following 

 facts were discovered : In 1823 Mantell submitted a paper 

 " On the Strata of Tilgate Forest," which was referred, but the 

 ballot ordered it not to be printed. A few pages further on is 

 a note " Resolved. That Mr. Webb and Mr. Stokes be appointed 

 a Committee to communicate with Mr. Brown and the owners 

 of the fossil plants upon this subject," and a note at the side 

 adds " on fossil plants to be published." Still further on, in 

 the accounts, is written " Payment of a bill for the printing 

 of two of Mr. Mantell's plates to be inserted in the 2nd part 

 of Vol. 1, 2nd series of the Transactions now publishing." As 

 Mantell has no other paper in this part of the Transactions, 

 these two plates must be those under discussion. It is evident, 

 therefore, that Mantell himself provided the specimens and the 

 illustrations, and a paper describing them, and that the paper 

 was revised or re-modelled by Stokes & Webb, who published 

 the author's own plates. This then accounts for the con- 

 temporary view that Mantell was the author of the work; and 

 it seems to me that it is only in a technical sense that Stokes & 

 Webb can be considered the authors of the paper. 



Regarding the distribution of Tempskya in the English Lower 

 Greensand, so far as 1 can discover, the only specimens of the 

 genus occur in the Potton Sands. The beds at Potton are peculiar 

 in containing a number of fossils which are certainly derived, it 

 may be from the preceding Wealden deposits. These fossils 

 generally show a richly coloured, rolled, and often highly glazed 

 surface, by which they can at once be distinguished by anyone 

 well acquainted with the plants of the horizon. Of the speci- 



