■1 1 (') Tranuicfioiis of thr Society. 



made tlie nifitter a ppooial study is Mr. Carnithers, and any words 

 on the sul>joet which tall from him deserve careful consideration. 

 In 1805 he puhhshod * a paper "On an undescrihed Cone from 

 the Carbonilerous Beds of Airdrie, Lancashire," and referring to the 

 occurrence of spores in coal, says (p. 434), " Not only do these 

 bodies exist in quantity in many coals, but some beds even of con- 

 siderable thickness are almost entirely made up of them. 'J heir 

 relation, however, to any organism that could have produced them 

 was unknown until the discovery of a cone by Mr. James Russell." 

 This cone was submitted to Mr. Carrutliers, who dei^cribed it as a 

 new genus under the name of Fleming ites, and allied it to the 

 modern family of Lycopodiew. It would therefore appear that 

 Mr. Carrutliers included in this genus all the spores discovered in 

 coal up to that time. It seems, however, that all previous observers 

 had fallen into an error in supposing that the coal-forming plant 

 possessed but one kind of spore, namely microspores. Thus Pro- 

 fessor J. H. Bennett,! in his paper " An Investigation into the 

 Structure of the Torbanehill Mineral and of various kinds of Coal," 

 refers to what are evidently microspores, microspores as " rings of 

 a transparent yellowish or reddish colour with an opaque centre" ; % 

 and referring to the m-acrospores, says, " There are also visible, 

 circles or rings of a rich golden yellow matter, much larger, and 

 varying in size from the filtieth to the sixth of an inch, which 

 have been described by some as seeds or spore-cases." Professor 

 J. H. Balfour, in his paper § "On certain Vegetable Organisms 

 found in ('oal from Fordel," mentions the occurrence of seed-like 

 bodies which he considers " to be the sporangia or spore-cases of 

 some plant allied to Lycopodium, perhaps Sigillaria." Later on, 

 in 1872, Professor Balfour refers || his coal spores and those which 

 had up to that time been detected in the mineral, to Mr. Car- 

 ruthers's genus Fhmingites. But what Professor 13alfour looked 

 u})on as a sporangium (tigs. 15, 16, 17, 18, plate II., of his paper) 

 is really not a sporangium but a macrospore. In describing the 

 genus Fhminyites ]\lr. Carruthers also fell into the same error, 

 that is to say, he figured it as possessed of but one kind of spore, 

 namely microspores. Like Professor Balfour, the object which Mr. 

 Carruthers took for a sporangium is really a macrospore. Those 

 which I represent in figs. 21, 22, very closely resemble Flemingites 

 Pedroans. ]\Ir. Carruthers has himself found out his mistake 

 and withdrawn the genus, which I cannot but regret, as its 



* Geol. Ma^r., ii. (1865) p 4r>3. 



t Trans. Roy. Soo. Edinburgh, xxi. (1853-4) p. 173. 



X From an examination of Professor I3ennctt's figiins, I should jiidgn tliat liis 

 sertions were not made sufficiently transparent to enable him to judge fairly of 

 the spores and the structure of the coal he examined, 



§ Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xxi. (1854) p. 191. 



II Palneontological Botany— description of plate iii., Gg. 1. 



