de 
90 Dr Arber and Mr Goode, On some fossil 
collected, it has been found that the plant-bearing shales are 
less than an inch in thickness, and very impersistent. Con- 
siderable quarrying operations, involving blasting, were found 
necessary to obtain even the few fragments figured here. 
Previous Records. 
Fossil plants thus appear to be exceedingly rare in the | 
Devonian rocks of North Devon. Yet the records of such are 
more numerous than might be supposed. There is however reason 
to believe that many of these relate to very obscure forms, no~ 
doubt originally of vegetable origin, but now quite unworthy of 
even generic determination. Some may also be the tracks of 
animals, others structures of inorganic origin. . 
The earliest reference dates from 1838, when Williams* men- 
tioned the “ Wollacombe sandstones and purple slates—contaiming 
fossil wood and plants,” and also “the wood and plants of the 
Sherwell sandstones.” 
Two years later Sedgwick and Murchison} published Lindley’s 
determinations of plants, collected from Sloly quarries (Marwood 
beds) by Williams and also by Major Harding}. Lindley con- 
cluded that “these remains are not susceptible of specific 
identification.” A Stigmaria or a Lepidodendron were recognised _ 
however, and other specimens were doubtfully compared with 
Sternbergia and Calamites. Lindley§ also identified Stigmaria 
ficoides from the Marwood quarries, and, according to De la Beche||, 
his other determinations were a “ Bothrodendron, somewhat re- 
sembling B. punctatum, and a Knorria, like Kn. Sellonu 
(Sternberg).” 
In 1863 Salter recorded from the Marwood beds “ Bornia 
(Calamites) transitionis, Goeppert and Lepidodendron (Knorria) 
dichotomum Haughton, and its roots.” 
In 1866 Godwin-Austen ** mentioned specimens from the Fore- 
land Grits, which he regarded as due originally to a “terrestrial 
vegetation.” Ktheridget+ however dismissed them as “a few 
undeterminable plant-like remains (Fucoids).” 
* Williams, Rep. Brit. Ass. Liverpool (1837), Vol. vz. pt. 2, p. 95, 1838. 
+ Sedgwick and Murchison, Trans. Geol. Soc. Ser. 2, Vol. 5, pt. 3, pp. 648, 682 
and 695, 1840. 
+ This collection, which is now in the Jermyn Street Museum (Nos. 14881-3), 
consists solely of Knorria casts. 
§ Sedgwick and Murchison, ibid. p. 690. 
‘ || De la Beche, Rep. Geol. Cornwall, Devon and W. Somerset, London, p. 50, 
839. 
{| Salter, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Vol. 19, p. 480 (see also p. 481), 1863. 
** Godwin-Austen, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Vol. 22, p. 3, 1866. 
+t Etheridge, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Vol. 23, p. 595, 1867 ; see also Proc. Geol. 
Assoc. Vol. xxv. p. 100, 1914. 
