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XXXIV. 



ON BOTHROBENDRON {GYCL08TIGMA) KILTCRKENSE, 



Haughton sp. 



By T. JOHNSON, D.Sc, F.L.S., 

 Professor of Botany in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. 



(Plates XXXV.-XLI.) 



[Read December 17, 1912. PubUshed March 20, 1913.] 



In the course of a revision of the fossil plants present in the Botanical Division 

 in the National Museum, Dublin, I have had an opportunity of noting the 

 gaps in our knowledge of those land-plants whicli, at any rate in Britain, 

 are the earliest of which, we have any definite botanical idea. I refer to the 

 well-known Upper Devonian beds of Kiltorcan Hill, Co. Kilkenny, where, in 

 1851, tlie officers of the Geological Survey brought to light deposits of fossil 

 plants and animals, which have made the name of Kiltorcan well known in 

 palseontological circles. The Department of Agriculture and Technical 

 Instruction for Ireland authorized me some years ago to make a further 

 exploration of these beds. It was not until July of this year (1912) that I was 

 able to spend a week with a collector and two quarrymen in excavating some 

 tons of rock, and in examining closely on both sides eacli slab as removed. 

 So rich are the rocks that it was, as the quarryman' Davis said (as we 

 examined and split open the slabs, showing what the local people called "the 

 drawings on the stone"), " like turning over the leaves of a picture-book." 

 It is worthy of note that not a single fresh-water mussel-shell Anodonta 

 Jukem was seen, and only a few isolated fish-scales.^ Fragments of foliage 



1 Eoad-mending is the fate of the quarry, unless steps are taken to preserve it as a " Nature- 

 monument." 



-The following note taken from "Nature" (24th Octoher, 1912, p. 227) deserves quotation 

 here : — 



" Much interest was aroused last March by the discovery of typical Upper Old Red Sandstone, 

 with fish-remains, beneath the neighbourhood of London. Mr. E. Proctor, of the Imperial College of 

 Science, exhibited to the Geological Society characteristic fragments of Holoptychius and 

 Bothriolepis, which he had obtained from a depth of between 1100 and 1200 feet in a boring at 

 Southall. He has lately presented these specimens to the British Museum (Natural History), where 

 they are now to be seen among the fossil fishes." 



