Arbkk — The Flora of the Ballyeastle Coalfield. 173 



Localities. — Rhizophores — Small quarry in sandstone, 30 feet below top of 

 the eli£E, 100 yards east of Ballyvoy Pier ; reef of sandstone at high-water 

 mark, 10 yards west of bridge on to Pans Rock by Bath Lodge. 



Rootlets abundant in the shales and sandstone between Ballyeastle and 

 Fair Head. 



Description. — This fossil, the commonest of all Carboniferous plants, 

 naturally calls for no diagnosis or special description here. 



The specimen figured on Plate X, fig. 4, which is half natural size, is a 

 compressed sandstone cast, showing the quincuncial arrangement of the 

 rootlet-sears very clearly. At the top the external portion of the cast has 

 become broken away, and a portion of the cast of the woody cylinder 

 is disclosed. 



4. The Age and Horizon of the Rocks. 



The flora of the Ballyeastle coalfield, though scanty, clearly indicates the 

 Lower Carboniferous age of the beds, and thus confirms the conclusion 

 already expressed by HulP and others, and now generally accepted, that on 

 lithological grounds there can be no doubt that the Ballyeastle beds belong 

 to the Lower Carboniferous system. With regard to the sub-division of that 

 system to which they should be referred, whether the Lower or Calciferous 

 Sandstone series, or the Upper or Carboniferous Limestone Series, the plant 

 evidence is less emphatic. The following table shows the recorded distribu- 

 tion of the Ballyeastle plants elsewhere in the Lower Carboniferous rocks 



of Britain and on the Continent. 



Carboniferous Calciferous 

 Limestone Sandstone 



Archwocalamites, sp., . . . x x 



Adiantites antiqiius (Ett.), . . — x 



Sp/ienopteris flahellata, Baily, . — — 



Lepidodendron Veltheimi, Sternb., x x 



L. Volhnannianum, Sternb., . x x 



L. cf. L. Rhodeanum, Sternb., . x x 



Stigmaria ficoides (Sternb.), . x x 



It is clear that no species known from the Ballyeastle coalfield is confined 

 to either series, except Adiantites antiquus (Ett.), which has not hitherto been 

 recorded from the Carboniferous Limestone Series. As is well known, there 

 are very good grounds, as was pointed out by Hull,' for correlating 

 the Ballyeastle beds, on purely lithological grounds, with the Carboniferous 

 Limestone Series of the Scotch coalfields, not far distant, especially those of 



'Huli (lb71), (!»/?;. ' iiuU (1871), p. 266; (1877), p. 628. 



