128 Royal Society ;— 



sideration has both valves " as distinctly and regularly perforated 

 as those of any Terebratulidce" Either Dr. Carpenter or I must 

 be labouring under some serious mistake. If the mistake be 

 mine, I shall readily bow to correction ; but I may be excused 

 maintaining my view until the appearances on which it is 

 founded are shown to support a contrary conclusion. 

 Belmont, near Galwa}', July 14, 1865. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



June 15, 1865. — Major-General Sabine, President, in the Chair. 



" A Description of some Fossil Plants, showing Structure, found 

 in the Lower Coal-seams of Lancashire and Yorkshire." By E. W. 

 Binney, F.R.S. 



The author stated that, although great attention has been devoted 

 to the collection of the fossil remains of plants with which our coal- 

 fields abound, the specimens are generally in very fragmentary and 

 distorted conditions as they occur imbedded in the rocks in which 

 they are entombed ; but when they have been removed, cut into 

 shape, and trimmed, and are seen in cabinets, they are in a far worse 

 condition. This is as to their external forms and characters. When 

 we come to examine their internal structure, and ascertain their true 

 nature, we find still greater difficulties, from the rarity of specimens 

 displaying both the external form and the internal structure of the 

 original plant. It is often very difficult to decide which is the out- 

 side, different parts of the stem dividing and exposing varied sur- 

 faces which have been described as distinct genera of plants. 



The specimens described were collected by the author himself, 

 and taken out of the seams of coal, just as they occurred in the matrix 

 in which they were found imbedded, by his own hands. This has 

 enabled him to speak with certainty as to the condition and locality 

 in which they were met with. 



By the ingenuity of the late Mr. Nicol of Edinburgh, we were fur- 

 nished with a beautiful method of slicing specimens of fossil wood so 

 as to examine their internal structure. The late Mr. Witham, as- 

 sisted by Mr. Nicol, first applied this successfully, and his work on 

 the internal structure of fossil vegetables was published in 1833. In 

 describing his specimens, he notices one which he designated Ana- 

 bathra pulcherrima. This did not do much more than alford evi- 

 dence of the internal vascular cylinder arranged in radiating series, 

 somewhat similar to that described by Messrs. Lindley and Hutton 

 as occurring in Stiymaria Jicoides, in the third volume of the ' Fossil 

 Flora.' 



In 1839 M. Adolphe Brongniart published his truly valuable 

 memoir, " Observations sur la structure interieure du Siyillaria ele- 



