540 



JF. S. Gresleu— Coal Plants. 



laminfe lower down in the seam, wliere the forking and curving 

 phenomena are very much less in evidence. Occasionally one notices 

 suggestions of a core or centre in these fossils — a little clay or pyrites, 

 for instance — but the majority of them are composed of compact, 

 bright, brittle, apparently structureless coal. The exteriors, when 

 the fossils enter the clay, are always filmed with clay, but seem 

 quite devoid of markings — are very smooth. A noticeable feature 

 of the terminals or extremities of the leaves or processes is a tendency 

 to thicken or become slightly bulbous there. Complete pockets of 

 clay are sometimes seen in them. When embedded in the coal-seam 

 they cannot be separated from the matrix. The longest individual 

 measured over 12 feet ; the thickest part of any one, about 4 inches, — 

 and all compact coal. Rarely one reaches to the base of the coal 

 above the fireclay C ; and here and there specimens seem wholly in 

 the latter stratum. From an examination of a very large number of 

 these forms, extending over many years of my professional work 

 (that of a mining engineer), underground in coal-mines and in clay- 

 mines, as well as in open-cast workings in coal and fireclay districts, 

 my conclusion is that in for'm or shape these fossils resemble, more 

 than anything else I know of, the fronds of the Elk-horn fern. 

 Fish teeth, scales, etc., have been found in contact with these coaly 

 forms. 



Viewed or regarded as veins, or in a purely stratigraphical and 

 physical light, wholly apart from botanical considerations, these 

 forms or shapes of coaly material, since thej'^ intersect the beds B 

 and C, would be regarded as having been formed there or placed there 

 since those beds were deposited. But as those forms are presumed 

 to be of vegetable origin, fossil plants or parts of plants which 

 evidently contributed coal to the seams A-A', two explanations of 

 their origin are possible, viz. : (1) That they are the drifted and 

 buried remnants of shrunk-np parts of trees, etc. ; and (2) that they 

 are plants which grew and died where they now are. If the former. 



Fig. 2. 



then they became buried before the coal A was fully accumulated, 

 and therefore before B and before were deposited ; if the latter, 

 •then we ought to find some tangible proof of the fact in connection 

 with them. That there is this proof is the burden of this paper — of 

 my argument. When these forms or fossils are strongly in evidence 

 and protrude stout processes up into the clay C, two things are 



