E. T. Newton— On " Tasmanite " and " White Coal" 341 



suggest that Prof. Church's name Tasmanite, which is so generally 

 used in reference to the schist as a whole, be retained for this. substance, 

 and that the spores (or rather the plant to which they belong) should 

 be called Tasmanites, with the specific title oipunctatus, in allusion to 

 their surface-markings. 



The piece of Tasmanite drawn in Figure 1 was chosen on account 

 of its exhibiting portions in which the spores are unusually far apart, 

 and others where they are more numerous and compressed. It is 

 this compressed portion which so closely resembles the structures 

 seen in many coals, and which Prof. Huxley believes to be masses of 

 spores and sporangia (Contemporary Beview, Nov. 1870). Improb- 

 able as it may seem to some persons that the combustible portions of 

 a bed of coal several feet in thickness should be for the most part 

 composed of spores, yet such is undoubtedly the fact in the case of 

 Tasmanite and Australian White Coal. In both these substances 

 the combustible portion consists entirely of sacs (spores ?) , no other 

 vegetable matter whatsoever being traceable. 



If a section of Better Bed Coal, such as that mentioned by Prof. 

 Huxley, be compared with one of Tasmanite or Australian White Coal 

 (see Figures 1 and 10), the similarity of their structures will be at 

 once apparent. The chief difference between them being, that while 

 in the two last there are only large spores and the spaces between these 

 are filled with sandy matters, in the former the interspaces between 

 the larger spores are filled in with multitudes of minute spores 

 mixed with mineral charcoal. 



With regard to the mode of occurrence of Tasmanite, Mr. Milligan, 

 in addition to the extract given above (page 338), says : " The same 

 brown combustible schist [Tasmanite] presents itself a mile higher 

 up the river, and on the same side, but at an elevation of more 

 than 100 feet above the water, and then it appeared to dip slightly 

 into a high and rather steep hill, etc. 



"The brown combustible schist exhibits at the elevation last 

 mentioned a thickness of six to seven feet in one distinct seam, 

 passing upwards into laminated clay rock of a yellowish colour, 

 interstratified with thin layers of the schist. 



" Below the six-feet seam there is, for a space, the same alternations 

 as above, but uninterrupted beds of compact yellowish and bluish 

 white clays succeed, etc. 



" The occurrence of thick beds of fine clay and clay schists without 

 oi'ganic remains above the fossiliferous masses [rocks previously 

 mentioned as occurring below the brown schists and clays], 

 denote a tranquil condition of superstant waters, compatible only 

 with the character of a capacious and sheltered bay, or deep and 

 extensive lake ; to which supposition the subsequent deposit of 

 repeated layers of a highly combustible schist of undoubted vegetable 

 origin lends great probability. 



" An extended and close examination of these beds, and the 

 formations with which they are associated, and a careful comparison 

 of their fossil contents, will be required thoroughly to establish 



