It4 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
bulbous root, and Cellules over the face, not sides of branches, as was 
supposed. The other displays in some instances, at least, spreading 
rootlets, or a funnel-shaped base with the Cellules well marked 
on the surface also, when the corneous film or test has disappeared 
(scaled away) in the impure flint macadamizing beds. I have 
already expressed regret that Dr. Spencer, now Director of the 
Georgia State Geological Survey, has apparently abandoned his 
intention of describing the new material obtained since he published 
his papers on “New Niagara Fossils, Hamilton, Ont.,” many years 
ago. It is to be hoped he may see a way to complete a work of 
much general interest, if one may be permitted to judge from several 
enquiries regarding the publication. 
I received from an old correspondent of mine, one of the 
fellows of the Royal Geological Society, London, some time since, 
the Cambrian Graptolite Oldhamia Radiata, found at Bray Head, 
Ireland, with an intimation that considerable doubt existed regarding 
its nature ; in fact, more than one paleontologist had expressed an 
opinion that plastic clay, under pressure or through shrinkage, some- 
times presents such an appearance as the specimen in the parcel 
assumed. ‘The branches, mere stains on the matrix, radiated from 
a well-defined central point. The bituminous Epitheca, generally 
characteristic of the family, was altogether absent ; however, this is 
not very unusual, as I have already mentioned. The conclusion 
finaliy arrived at was that the specimen I received was no true 
Graptolite ; it resembled more the spreading rootlets of an Alga, or 
sea plant, and I thought it decidedly organic. I heard nothing 
subsequently respecting it. Hugh Miller, in one of his works, 
alludes to Oldhamia Antiqua, I think, as an Alga. Dana in 
“The Manual of Geology,” 3rd edition, page 179, figures under the 
head ‘‘ European Cambrians” Oldhamia Antiqua, O. Radiata, 
adding on the following page (fig. 276) a species probably vegetable, 
found with Oldhamia Radiata, Bray Head, Wicklow, Ireland. 
The Class-Book of Geology, by the Director-General of the 
United Kingdom Survey (Dr., now Sir Archibald Geikie), was, I 
think, wisely selected as the text book of the Ladies’ College in 
a branch of science which has few supporters among the churches. 
On glancing over the work I ascertained that the nature of the 
Oldhamia remained even yet undetermined—the author stating 
the puzzling organism has been variously referred to the Hydrozoa, 
