428 



jecture seems to be useless ; since the plant appears to have dif- 

 fered so much from any thing which we now know, as to leave 

 us without the opportunity of deriving any aid from analogy, and 

 but little from comparison. The variety in the shape, size, and 

 disposal of the tubercles on the surface of this fossil, appears to 

 be sufficient, to warrant the supposition that the genera and species 

 of this unknown family must have been very numerous. Unable 

 to find sufficient points of correspondence between it, and any plant 

 which is now known to exist, we must be satisfied, with Dr. Wood- 

 ward, whose opportunities for judgment, from the multitude of 

 his specimens, perhaps exceeded those of any one else, to submit 

 to leave it among the fossilia incognita. 



The specimen figured at Plate IX. Fig. 1, and which was obtained 

 since the foregoing observations were committed to writing, seems 

 to furnish, at least, another conjecture, respecting this extraordinary 

 fossil. In this specimen, of itself highly interesting, is an oblong 

 cylindrical body, which is curiously imbricated on its surface, evi- 

 dently by the particular arrangement of squama? ; from which mem- 

 branous productions, exceedingly thin, forming tubuli, pass directly 

 inwards, in a perpendicular direction, \o another body placed in 

 the centre of the former. The external surface of this body is also 

 imbricated in a somewhat similar manner, obviously from the regu- 

 lar insertions of the terminations of the membranous productions, 

 proceeding from the external squamce. A reference to the figure 

 will show the external and internal imbricated surface, as well as 

 the membranous productions, forming tubuli, by which both are 

 connected ; manifesting this fossil to have been a Strobilus, analo- 

 gous in its organization, though different in its form, from any at 

 present known. 



From the perfect state of seclusion in which this body has been 

 kept, by the close texture of the surrounding argillaceous iron-stone, 

 its bituminization has been complete, so that all its parts have been 



