CALAMAR1EAE. 3 1 9 



Stbg, large enough to cover several internodes and sometimes with the 

 leaves still attached, are constantly found at Radnitz along with that 

 species. This explanation, which Weiss 1 apparently does not accept, 

 since he dismisses it in a few words, seems to me not improbable. The 

 pieces of leafy stem from Wettin are actually shreds of this kind, and 

 answer exactly to Stur's description. This appears from the figures, but 

 I have been able to satisfy myself on the point from the specimens them- 

 selves, which were kindly sent to me by von Fritsch. The specimen 

 figured by Weiss 2 shows the flatly convex outer side, as may be seen from 

 the leaves lying on it and separated from the epidermis by a thin layer of 

 the stone. It is quite irregular in its outline 2 and nothing can be seen of the 

 cast, of which it must have formed the surface, indeed the gray slaty 

 rock contains a couple of nodular concretions immediately underneath it. 

 Another of the specimens which I received from von Fritsch shows a 

 confused mass of these shreds of leafy outer membrane. The figure in 

 Ettingshausen 3 may also be compared. The often cited and often figured 

 piece from Wettin 4 shows partly the epidermis, partly a ribbed impression 

 of the inner surface ; Stur explains this by supposing that after the cortical 

 tissue was destroyed by maceration, the mineral matter must have made 

 its way in between the loosened epidermis and the wood, which was still 

 intact. The impression, so far as it shows longitudinal ribs, must therefore 

 answer to the outer surface of the secondary wood, the remainder of it to 

 the inner side of the epidermis ; then by uneven fracture partly the one 

 and partly the other side of the cylindrical fracture was disclosed to view. 

 So long as I had only the figures before me, I could not clearly judge of 

 the grounds for this opinion ; for the figures are not alike. In Germar 5 

 and Schenk 6 the ribbed portion lies below the epidermal surface, in Weiss' 

 figure above it. I suspect therefore that the two first specimens show one 

 face of the fracture, the third the other face ; the contours also are iden- 

 tical in the pieces of the two first authors, in Weiss they are essentially 

 different. I have received Weiss' original specimen from Halle, and have 

 therefore been able to satisfy myself of the correctness of the figure. It is 

 a fragment of a mould, in which the portion of the wood which shows the 

 longitudinal ribbing lies naturally a little above the outer surface, from 

 which it is separated by a thin layer of stone ; small remains of the ex- 

 tremely thin rind of coal still cling to its depressions. This last circumstance 

 shows that, as the coal could only be really formed from the wood, the 

 latter lay inside the ribbed surface, and that the ribbing therefore corre- 

 sponds to the surface pf the wood, and not to the medullary tube. And 

 this is exactly the state of things required by Stur's view, which therefore 



1 Weiss (5), p. 147. * Weiss (5),t. i, f. 2. 3 von Ettingshausen (8), t. 48, f. i. 



1 Weiss (5), t. i, f. i. 5 Germar (1), t. 20, f. i. Schenk (2), t. 35, f. i. 



