330 Reports and Proceedings — 



can now be detected in Central England. The Lickey quartzite has 

 been supposed to have contributed some of these ; but the author 

 states that he has not found any one well-defined Llandovery species, 

 but that the most characteristic are Lower Silurian. These pebbles 

 are most abundant south of Birmingham, towards Warwick and 

 Stratford-on-Avon. They agree lithologically with the Budleigh 

 Salterton jDebbles ; these, as it has been shown, are partly Lower 

 Silurian, partly Devonian, partly Carboniferous. The author gives 

 a list of species collected by him from the Warwickshire pebbles. 

 Sixteen are present from the twenty-four Lower Silurian forms 

 found in Devonshire. Notwithstanding their identity, physical con- 

 siderations forbid the supposition that they have been derived directly 

 from that locality or Normandy, so that it is probable these Lower 

 Silurian quartzite rocks once extended much further to the north. 



IL— May 25, 1881.— E. Etheridge, Esq., F.E.S., President, in the 

 Chair. — The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Discovery of some Remains of Plants at the Base of the 

 Denbighshire Grits, near Corwen, North Wales." By Henry Hicks, 

 M.D., F.G.S. With an Appendix by E. Etheridge, Esq., F.E.S., 

 Pres. Geol. Soc. 



Traces of these fossils were first observed in 1875 by the author 

 in Pen-y-glog quarry, about two miles E. of Corwen. Further 

 research has resulted in the discovery of more satisfactory specimens, 

 which have been examined by Messrs, Carruthers, Etheridge, and 

 E. T. Newton. Among them are spherical bodies resembling the 

 Pacliytheca of Sir J. D. Hooker, from the bone-bed of the Ludlow 

 series, supposed to be Lycopodiaceous spore-cases ; also numerous 

 rninute bodies stated by Mr. Carruthers to be united in threes, and 

 to agree with the forms of the microspores of Lycopodiaceae, both 

 recent and fossil ; and some fragments, which may belong to these 

 plants, and others, probably belonging to plants described by Dr. 

 Dawson from the Devonian of Canada under the name of Psilo'pliyton. 

 The above testify to the existence of a very rich land-flora at the 

 time. Mixed up with these, however, are numerous carbonaceous 

 fragments of a plant, described also by Dr. Dawson from the Devo- 

 nian of Canada, which he referred to the Coniferse, but which is, 

 according to Mr. Carruthers, an anomalous form of Alga. The 

 former called it Prototaxites ; the latter renamed it Nematopliycus. 

 Numerous microscopical sections, showing the beautiful structure of 

 this interesting plant, from the specimens found at Pen-y-glog, have 

 been examined by Mr. Etheridge and Mr. Newton, and their con- 

 clusions agree with those of Mr. Carruthers. The evidence seems 

 to show that at this mid-Silurian period the immediate area where 

 the plants are now discovered must have been under water, and that 

 the mixture of marine and dry-land plants took place in consequence 

 of floods on rapid marine denudation. The author indicated that 

 the land-areas must have been to the south and west, chiefly islands, 

 surrounded by a moderately deep sea, in which Graptolites occurred 

 in abundance. The position of these beds may be stated to be about 



