32 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



and he seems to have placed rather too much reUance on the views 

 of others in this and a few more instances as well. 



PaLyEOCHORda.— Under this name may be classified many of 

 the fucoids Dana notes in the Manual of Geology as occurring in 

 the Silurians of the United States. They are rounded branching 

 stems, he adds, from the size of a thread to that of a finger. I 

 obtained one of the intermediate forms from the Grey Band here, 

 which many palaeontologists would suppose to be a hew species. I 

 think it may prove, if not identical, at least a variety of a cord-like 

 form of the lower Clinton green shales. The plant in question I 

 found at the foot of the bluff, a little beyond the Reservoir, some 

 twenty years ago. It is in the possession of the Canadian Geological 

 Survey. I am unable to say whether it has ever been figured or 

 described. 



The late Dr. E. Billings, in a communication acknowledging 

 the receipt of a box of organic remains from Hamilton, noticed 

 particularly the Clinton fucoid, which was new to him also : " The 

 rounded, matted, conical masses, with the tubes folding over each 

 other." I was not able to afford him at that time the additional 

 information he required regarding its position and surroundings in 

 situ ; in fact, all I knew about it then was that it must have fallen 

 from one of the overlying green bands many years previously ; other- 

 wise it could not have been weathered out so well. It was not until 

 I had examined, long after, nearly every layer of both bands, that I 

 at length ascertained the actual position of the fossil. It occurs at 

 intervals in a soft muddy band in the lower green shales. Strictly 

 speaking, it is not exactly of a shaly nature, in the general accept- 

 ance of the term. Where the plant came into contact with its im- 

 mediate surroundings, it evidently possessed the property of indur- 

 ating and converting the muddy sediment iitto a hard, stoiiy substance. 

 Arthrophycus Harlani, another seaweed, as asserted by Credner 

 recently, is found associated with it, and also a new species of the 

 late Mr, Billings' genus, Licrophycus. I cannot suppose any 

 ordinary annelid ever possessed the power of changing mud into 

 stone. Hugh Miller records an instance where some weeds and 

 vegetable refuse had been deposited on a heap of clay ; the mass in 

 a short time, although exposed to the air, become so hard that he 

 was forced to use a pick to remove it. I am enabled to bring to 



