Johnson and G-ilmohe — The Lignite of Washing Bay, Co. Tyrone. 61 



twice in his account of Sequoia canadensis. All subsequent observers overlooked 

 his observation until Prill {op. cit., s. 207), who has anticipated us in claiming credit 

 for Schroeter for the discovery. 



Our wood is not Taxodium or Glyptostrohus, nor indeed Gryptomeiia, in which 

 the cross-walls are slightly nodulose. 



The species which have smooth cross-walls in the resin cells are Sequoia, 

 Athrotaxis, and Taiwania. In Taiivania the pores ' of the medullary rays are 

 oblique, sometimes almost vertical ; we have not found Athrotaxis with medullary 

 rays more than ten cells high, so that by a process of elimination we must conclude 

 that our wood is Sequoia, and we believe it to be the wood of S. Gmtttsiae Heer, of 

 which the leaves, cone, and seeds occur in the same bore, and have been already 

 described by us (10). But for this association, it would be called Taxodioxylon 

 sequuianum Gothan. 



Heer (9) in his investigation of the Lignite of Bovey Tracey found resin 

 plentiful, and satisfied himself that the wood was coniferous. He could make out 

 little of its structure, but, from the occurrence of foliage and cones of 8. Couttsiae, 

 assumed that the wood belonged to that species. 



Beust (2) in 1885 was a little more successful, and there is nothing in his 

 account not in accordance with the now known characters of Sequoia wood. 

 He states that <S'. Couttsiae is characterized by enormous quantities of resin, often 

 seen in large lumps in the cells. Heer told Beust that he had found amber in 

 large quantities in the wood. 



In 1869, a few years after Heer's report on the Bovey Tracey Flora, Schenk 

 (17) described the plant remains found in the lignite of Saxony near Leipzig, 

 which has been assigned to the same age as Bovey Tracey — i.e., the Oligocene. It 

 is to be regretted that Schenk did not publish figures to show the cross-walls 

 of the resin parenchyma which he said were mostly evident, and to show the 

 roundish pits of the medullary rays. Schenk said he would have placed such 

 a wood in the composite genus Gupressinoxylon if found alone. He examined 

 the structure of the wood, which was in connexion with foliage shoots like 

 those of S. gigantea, and with cones like those of >S'. sempervirens, and satisfied 

 himself that the fossil was identical with <S. Guuttsiae of Bovey Tracey. 



Felix (4) holds that some of the lignite found in N.-W. Saxony and adjoining 

 districts, and named G. protolarix, is undoubtedly Sequoia Gouttsiae wood. 



The lignites and silicified wood of Lough Neagh have been the subjects of 

 conjecture and study for many years. Dr. Eichard Barton (1) in 1751, in what 

 was one of the first accounts of petrifactions in the British Isles, gives particulars 

 of the abundance of fossil wood around Lough Neagh, and of the gift to the 

 University near Dublin of specimens, one of which weighed 150 lbs. We have 

 not seen this fossil, but have examined another piece of silicified wood in the 

 Geological Museum of Trinity College. This specimen has a copper cap and 

 label on which the inscription reads: "Brought from Lough Neagh, 1721, by 

 Sir Wm. Fownes." 



Unger (20 j, in 1847, named a sample of lignite from Lough Neagh, Peuce 

 Fritchardi, and described it thus :— " Strata concentrica minus conspicua usque ad 

 1 mil met lata. Vasa leptoticha versus limitem annuli paulatim angustiora. 

 Fori disciformes minuti eontigui uni-biseriales. Eadii medullores simplices rarius 

 compositi 1-25 cellulis parenchymatis amplis formati. Ductus resinifericopiosi. Ad 

 Lough Neagh Angliae (Andw. Fritchard)." Goeppert renamed it Pinites Fritchardi, 

 simply repeating Unger's description. Kraus placed it in his Gupressinoxylon 

 group, and as such it has since been known. 



