538 W. S. Gresley—Coal Plants. 



the Kellaways series, I noticed that Phillips, in his " Geology of 

 Yorkshire,"' in a list of "Fossils from the Kellaways Eock," refers 

 to a "coracoid bone? of a saurian animal," and this is the only 

 record of any kind that I have been able to find. I thought it 

 possible that the specimen referred to by Phillips might be in the 

 York Museum. On communicating with Mr. Platnauer, the Curator, 

 however, on the matter, he states — "Phillips' 'Undetermined 

 Coracoid ' from the Kellaways is not in our Museum. Indeed, our 

 collections have no vertebrate remains from the Kellaways Kock 

 at all." 



It should be mentioned that whilst at Scarborough recently 

 I noticed two lumps of hard ferruginous rock in the Museum 

 grounds, the matrix and general appearance of which very much 

 resembled that of the Kellaways Rock, which is exposed in several 

 places in the neighbourhood. Each piece on its broken face ex- 

 hibited the section of a huge bone, somewhat resembling the paddle- 

 bones from Mill Hill, just described. A portion of an articular 

 surface also protruded from one of the pieces> Of course it is- 

 possible that these two Scarborough blocks were found together 

 in the Kellaways Rock, and it is not even improbable that they 

 represent the specimens referred to by Phillips. In the absence 

 of labels or other information, however, we are left in the dark on 

 these points, but it seems desirable that the specimens should be 

 recorded. 



III. — Coal Plants. Incontrovertible Evidence of Gkowthj 



IN SITU. 



By W. S. Gresley, F.G.S., F.G.S.A. 



THE fossils to which this communication relates were described 

 and the deductions drawn from their mode of occurrence in a 

 paper I submitted to the Geological Society of London in 1896, but aS' 

 that paper was not printed in extenso (see Q.J.G.S., vol. liii, p. 245), 

 with the Editor's kind permission the gist of it appears as follows. 



I am not aware that entirely satisfactory evidence showing that 

 any of the coal-forming plants' grew exactly where they occur 

 to-day as fossils, has as yet been produced. What authenticated 

 cases of demonstrated growth-in-place coal-forming plants have been 

 admitted by reliable or competent workers and teachers in this 

 connection ? While many instances of tree stumps with root- 

 processes and other forms of vegetation more or less in contact with 

 beds of coal have been cited in many countries, in no case do they 

 seem to have contributed coal to the seam, or been found to be 

 composed of but little else than material foreign to coal (stone, 

 pyrites, clay, shale, etc.). Many trustworthy observers have pointed 

 out the danger in taking it for granted that erect fossil stumps met 



1 1829 edition, p. 142. 

 The term ' eoal-formiug ' used in this paper means entering more or less 

 extensively into, or contributing, material of a coal-like aspect and chemical com- 

 position, practically the same as the coal-bed in which occurring, with which to help 

 to pile up or add thickness to the seam. 



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