Professor A. C. Seward — Fossil Plants front Cape Colony. 485 



appearance is more clearly seen, but in the form of depressions. The 

 depressions vary in size and exhibit no regularity of arrangement. 



Dr. White expresses the opinion that he is strongly inclined to 

 regard the fossils as not vegetable, but, he adds, if Hastimima is 

 a plant, "it would seem that the tubercles [scales] should be inter- 

 preted as sporangia or sporangiferous, as cushions giving rise to some 

 appendages, or as glands." With this suggested interpretation I am 

 unable to agree. The idea occurred to Dr. White as to myself, before 

 I read his description, that the tuberculate impression might belong 

 to some animal, but "a number of eminent American specialists in 

 vertebrate palaeontology ", to whom Dr. White showed the material, 

 were unwilling to accept the fossils as coming within their province. 

 The author of the genus expresses the opinion that it will probably 

 be found later in other Lower Gondwana areas, a prophecy which 

 appears to be now partly fulfilled. The Indian fossils described 

 originall)' by Feistmantel,' and more recently by Zeiller,- as Dictyopteru 

 are compared hy White with his specimens, but I agree with him that 

 the two are not geuerically identical. 



At first sight the row of rounded ridges shown in Figs. 5, 6, J, 

 reminded me of the strips of secondary wood separated by medullary 

 rays which are seen in some longitudinally split examples of Stiymaria 

 such as that figured by Williamson ^ in his monograph of the genus, but 

 it would seem impossible to explain on this comparison the irregularly 

 arranged smaller scales. The rieiv ivhich seems to me most lioijeful is 

 that this fossil represents j)art of a body-seyment of a Eurypterid. 

 A comparison of Figs. 5, 6 with several of the drawings given in 

 Dr. Woodward's monograph of the British Fossil Crustaceans 

 belonging to the order Merostomata ^ leads me to think that it is 

 far from improbable that the impression has been produced by some 

 Eurypterid. This comparison has, however, but little claim to be 

 considered more than a guess, and we must wait for further discoveries 

 to decide the nature of the Mexican and African specimens. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXVIII. 



Figs. 1-4. Botlirodendron {rrcgiilare, Schwarz. (Nat. size.) 

 ,, 5, 6. Hastimima. 8]), (Nat. size.) 



P.S. — Since the above notes were written I have had the benefit of 

 Dr. Woodward's opinion on the specimen represented in Figs. 5 and 6. 

 This he has now stated in a "Note on the genus Hastimima" \ his 

 conclusions convert my ' guess ' as to the Eurypterid nature of the 

 fossil into an identification which is unlikely to be seriously questioned. 

 Dr. Woodward, by his ready response to my request to examine the 

 specimens, has contributed a valuable piece of evidence in regard to 

 the geological age of the Witteberg Series of Cape Colony. 



1 Feistmantel, Mem. GeoL Surv. India, 1881, voL iii, pi. xxiiiA, figs. 4-6, 14. 



2 Zeiller, ibid., 1902, vol. ii (New Series), p. 24, pi. iv, fig. 8. 

 ^ PaUcontographical Society, 1887, pi. xiv, fig. 68. 



4 Ibid., 1866-78. 



