128 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
inches long and one inch wide at top, has a sharp conical root and 
it is considerably curved, so much so that at first it was mistaken for 
a black Cyrtoceras. It has a roughened wrinkled surface, and in 
this it differs from the Clinton ones, which are always smooth, as also 
from the other fragments a little above the blue building beds. Of 
all the Niagara series I am now collecting examples for Sir Wm. 
Dawson, who probably may throw a little light on a few of the 
problematic organisms of our local rocks. |The indurated shales of 
the Barton waterlime beds (Niagaras), display a very large number 
of vertical tubes of various sizes filled in. ‘These undoubtedly bear 
a marked resemblance to worm burrows, although one gentleman, 
a well-known geologist, expressed his opinion that they represented 
perhaps a Coral Syringopora, or a Monticulipora. The absence 
of structure is opposed to this, and it appears now an easy matter 
to establish the vegetal nature despite occasional appearances. 
Close to the Barton waterlime beds, a sheet of tufa or carbonate of 
lime has been deposited on the face of a small cliff to which, in 
places, modern mosses and lichens, have attached themselves. In 
some instances I noticed the latter plant had been washed off, de- 
cayed and disappeared ; not, however, before the vegetable acid had 
eaten its way into the lime on which it grew. It left a perfect 1m- 
pression of itself on the material it covered. 
Professor J. F. James, in a very interesting paper he lately sent 
me, remarks that the outlines of plants (leaves) may be preserved 
also by what he calls ‘‘a chemical process.” Even under unfavor- 
able conditions, which he describes, he was enabled to recognize a 
variety of leaves he enumerates, fallen ones, which had impressed 
their outlines on flags. They were more than impressions, he states, 
for they were not washed away by the rain. They were not mere 
surface markings. May not a well authenticated fact such as this 
account at least for some of our faint, doubtful plant remains ? 
Nearly all the fossilized plants in this neighborhood appear to 
have conical roots—fibrous ones are rarely seen. Since the dis- 
covery of a Dictyonema recently with this peculiarity, I feel almost 
inclined to suppose a mistake may possibly have arisen in at leasta 
few instances where remarked. I had nearly forgotten to men- 
tion that I extracted from the ancient lake beach at Burlington 
Heighis, quite recently, a water-worn rounded shingle containing 
empty tubes of Scolithus, which you may compare with a Potsdam 
