142 ON THE FORMATION OF COAL v 



The first person who threw any light upon the 

 problem, as far as I have been able to discover, 

 was the well-known geologist, Professor Morris. 

 It is now thirty-four years since he carefully 

 described and figured the coin-shaped bodies, or 

 larger sacs, as I have called them, in a note 

 appended to the famous paper "On the Coal- 

 brookdale Coal-Field," published at that time, 

 by the present President of the Geological Society, 

 Mr. Prestwich. With much sagacity, Professor 

 Morris divined the real nature of these bodies, 

 and boldly affirmed them to be the spore-cases 

 of a plant allied to the living club-mosses. 



But discovery sometimes makes a long halt; 

 and it is only a few years since Mr. Carruthers 

 determined the plant (or rather one of the plants) 

 which produces these spore-cases, by finding the 

 discoidal sacs still adherent to the leaves of the 

 fossilized cone which produced them. He gave 

 the name of Flemingites gracilis to the plant of 

 which the cones form a part. The branches 

 and stem of this plant are not yet certainly 

 known, but there is no sort of doubt that it was 

 closely allied to the Lepidodendron, the remains 

 of which abound in the coal formation. The 

 Lepidodendra were shrubs and trees which put 

 one more in mind of an Araucaria than of any 

 other familiar plant ; and the ends of the fruiting 

 branches were terminated by cones, or catkins, 

 somewhat like the bodies so named in a fir, or a 



