24 A. G. Nathorst — Markings on Cambrian Modes. 



With these must also go the impressions from the Lower Silurians 

 of Sweden which constitute the genus Eophjton. These were 

 always known to be only surface markings, but so remarkably did 

 they imitate stems and leaves of plants that it was very difficult to 

 gainsay those who unhesitatingly placed them among vegetables. 

 And if vegetables, it seemed certain that they belonged to Phanero- 

 gamous plants, and not to any of the lower groups of Cryptogamous 

 plants whose remains are the earliest vegetable fossils met with. 

 Mr. Nathorst has produced typical specimens of Eophi/ton from the 

 trails of plants over soft mud. So that while Eophyton testifies to 

 the existence of life on the shores when the markings were made, 

 these markings supply no evidence as to the nature or form of the 

 plants by which they were produced. 



It may be worth while to add a sentence to this notice in order to 

 record that the doubt already thrown on Saporta's Lower Silurian 

 fern Eopteris Morieri was confirmed by the examination of a speci- 

 men exhibited at a recent meeting of the Geological Society. And 

 that the mineral nature of the markings was completely established, 

 and the impossibility of its being a plant was pointed out by Dr. 

 Sterry Hunt when he showed that it lay along the lines of the 

 slaty cleavage, and not on a surface of deposition. 



n^OTiGES OIF li^iBivnoiias. 



I. — Om Aftryck af Medusor I SvERiGES Kambkiska Lager. 

 Af a. G. Nathorst, Kongl. Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens 

 Handlingar. Bandet 19, No. 1. Med 6 Taflor. Stockholm, 

 1881. On Impressions of Medusae in the Cambrian Kocks of 

 Sweden. By A. G. Nathorst. 



JN this Number of the Magazine a notice is given by Wra. 

 Carruthers, Esq., F.E.S., of a paper by Herr Nathorst, in 

 which he brings forward reasons to show that the impressions on 

 beds of sandstone of Cambrian age, hitherto regarded as plants, 

 and known under the generic name of JEopliyton, were more 

 probably markings produced by the trails of Medusse. In the 

 present paper the author endeavours to prove that the same beds 

 contain impressions and casts of these organisms. The possibility 

 of jelly-fishes leaving proofs of their existence in the rocks is 

 well known from the indubitable impressions left by these animals 

 in the Solenhofen slates. The Eophyton sandstones are, however, 

 much less fitted to receive and retain the markings of delicate 

 organisms than the lithographic beds of Solenhofen, and it is not, 

 therefore, to be wondered at that the impressions they contain, 

 being ruder and more indefinite in their character, should have 

 been variously interpreted. This accounts for the circumstance 

 that the forms now referred by the author to Medusae have been 

 previously described by Torell and Linnarsson under the generic 

 names of Spatangopsis, Agelacrinus ?, Protolyellia, and Astylospopgia, 



