40 Reports and Proceedings — 



Journ. Geol. Soc, August, 1881) he had ascertained that plant- 

 remains occurred in the slaty beds down to the base of the quarry, 

 though much obscured by cleavage. The larger specimens are in the 

 form of anthracite. Mr. Carruthers states that there is sufficient evi- 

 dence to show that they are the remains of vascular plants, with some 

 resemblance to the Lj'copodiacese. Some of the fragments are from 

 4 to 5 inches wide, and the author had traced trunks some feet in 

 length. He thought they had drifted to the position where they 

 •were now found. Leaf-markings generally are not preserved ; but 

 from the wrinklings still remaining on some specimens, he thought it 

 probable they had been covered with leaves spirally arranged. Some 

 fragments show scars arranged irregularly on the surface ; probably 

 these are fragments of roots. The plant seems to some extent to 

 combine the characters of Stigmarta, Sigillaria, and Lepidodendron. 

 Further details of the appearance of the specimens were given. For 

 one which appears to differ from all hitherto described he proposes 

 the name of Berwynia Carriithersii. 



2. " Notes on Prototaxites and Pachjtheca from the Denbighshire 

 Grits of Corwen, North Wales." By Principal Dawson, LL.D., 

 F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author stated that he had obtained specimens of the Plant- 

 remains from near Corwen, and that among them there were two kinds, 

 one dark, the other light-coloured. In the former, the long cells 

 and woody fibres are filled with rods of transparent siliceous matter, 

 and the walls represented by a thick layer of carbon. The lighter 

 kind consists of the siliceous rods alone, which are thus in the same 

 state as the asbestos-like silicified Coniferous wood of the Californian 

 gold-gravels. In both the siliceous rods show traces of the irregu- 

 larly spiral ligneous lining of the cell walls. From these and other 

 characters the author refers the specimens to his genus Frototaxites, 

 which, he says, is not an Alga, but a woody terrestrial plant. The 

 author did not state that Prototaxites actually belonged to the 

 Taxinese, but that its fossilized wood showed a resemblance to 

 that of some fossil Taxinete. The remains discovered by Dr. Hicks 

 differ, as already recognized by Mr. Etheridge, from Prototaxites 

 Logani, Daws. ; and the species may be named P. Hicksii. 



Of PacJiytheca the author stated that he had specimens from the 

 Upper Silurian of New Brunswick, and these and the Welsh specimens 

 seem to belong to the genus Mtheotesta, Brongn., and to be nearly 

 allied to ^. devonica, Daws., from the Devonian of Scotland. These 

 fossils occur associated with Prototaxites, not only at Corwen, but in 

 the Upper Ludlow of England, in the Upper Silurian of Cape Bon 

 Ami, and in the Lower Devonian of Bordeaux quarry opposite 

 Campbellton in New Brunswick, and as the author maintains 

 ^theotesta to be a seed, and Brongniart compared it with the seeds 

 of the Taxineee, this may be taken as an additional evidence in favour 

 of the Taxine, or at any rate Gymnospermatous nature of Proto- 

 taxites. 



Prof. Judd stated that he exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Thiselton 

 Dyer, two sections of Pacliytheca. Mr. Thiselton Dyer regretted 



