Reports and Proceedings. 271 



ature has been miicli greater in this country than in America, for 

 the tempei'atUre of the former has never been raised by the influence 

 of the Gulf Stream, owing to the cold Polar stream from Davis Straits, 



The excessive cold of the American winters is due to the conti- 

 uental character of the climate, and the absence of any benefit from 

 the Gulf Stream ; the summers also are cooled to a great extent by 

 the icebergs from Greenland. It is no wonder then that the shells 

 which flourished in Canada during the Glacial epoch, have not left 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence and neighbouring seas. 



On the whole, it may be concluded that had the Gulf Stream not 

 returned to our shores at the close of the Glacial epoch, and had its 

 place been supplied by a cold stream from polar regions, similar 

 to that which washes the shores of North America, it is highly 

 probable that nearly every species found in our Glacial beds, would 

 have had their representatives flourishing in our British seas at the 

 present day. 



Manchester Geological Society. — -A meeting of the members 

 of this society was held on the 28th at the Museum, Peter Street ; 

 Mr. E. W. Binney, F.R.S. the president, in the chair. 



The President exhibited a nodule of ironstone, found by him in 

 the Wigan 4ft. coal, containing a number of small spores or seeds 

 about the size of a pin's head. The outside of the specimen had 

 evident characters of the root of Sigillaria, and its inside was full of 

 the spores. These latter were covered by a thick brown cover, one 

 side presenting a rounded appearance, but on the other a triradiate 

 ridge. The inside was composed of beautifully white carbonate of 

 lime. The spores appeared to be more like those of the Lepidostrobus 

 ornatus figured and described by Dr. J. D. Hooker in the Memoirs of 

 the Geological Survey of Great Britain, than of any other with which 

 he was acquainted, but he had not as yet found them in a sporangium. 

 In all cases where he had met with them they were loose and de- 

 tached. Mr. Carruthers had described in the Geological Magazine 

 for October last a singular cone, found by Mr. James Eussell, of 

 Airdrie, which he had termed Flemingites gracilis, containing many 

 sporangia similar in form, but considerably less in size than those 

 found in the Wigan Specimen. These sporangia of Flemingites are 

 found largely in all the splint-coals of Scotland and England, and no 

 doubt had a great deal to do with their good qualities for iron making 

 and steam raising purposes. In the Fifeshire coals he had found 

 these in the 8ft. main, and Princewell seams at Methill, and in the 

 Barnsley main at Handsworth Woodhouse, east of Sheffield. He 

 believed that Professor John Morris, F.G.S., had also found them at 

 Low Moor. So far as his (the president's) knowledge extended, all 

 splint coals contained more or less of these sporangia. It was only 

 in Mr. Russell's specimens that the sjDorangia were seen in situ, and in 

 all the other cases they were found detached like the spores from 

 Wigan coalfield now exhibited. It was singular that the sporangium 

 of the Flemingites should be so similar in shape and size to the spores of 

 the Lepidostrobus ornatus, and so dissimilar to the sporangium of thd 



