Henry Woodioard — Address to the Geologists' Association. 543 



of certain families of plants, whicli not only thrive under similar 

 conditions of soil and climate, but seem, in some remarkable manner, 

 to depend upon one another — just as surely as amongst the Mammalia 

 certain carnivora and herbivora are found associated in the same 

 geographical areas. 



It is by practically bringing to bear on fossil botany a correct 

 and widely-extended knowledge of the mutual relations and geo- 

 graphical distribution of living plants over the earth's surface, that 

 Heer and others have been guided in their otherwise almost forlorn 

 task, and have revealed to us, in the most striking manner, the 

 vegetation of our earth in the later geological periods. 



It is now many years since Prof. Morris figured and described 

 some small round bodies from Coalbrook-dale which he believed to 

 be the sporangia of a Lepidodendron. These separate bodies were 

 observed in great abundance in the coal-seams of Scotland, and were 

 figured by Balfour and others. Goldenberg figured the same bodies 

 as the fruit of SigiUaria attached to the inner surface of the some- 

 what dilated leaves of that plant. Carruthers discovered the small 

 bodies in relation to the leaves of a lepidodendroid cone, to which he 

 gave the name of Flemingites, considering them still to be sporangia. 

 as there was no evidence of an investing spore-case. This view was 

 further adopted by Huxley, when he lectured on the "Better-bed 

 Coal" at Bradford, a bed almost made up of these small bodies.^ 

 Since then Binney has discovered a cone, in which the lower 

 portion is occupied with the round bodies inclosed in spore-cases, 

 and the upper portion by small spores, as in the living Selaginellas. 

 Williamson has observed the same structure in a cone from Burnt- 

 island, and Mr. Carruthers has communicated to me a more per- 

 fect cone, in which not only is this arrangement exhibited, but 

 the internal structure of the spores establishes that these cones 

 agree in general structure with the perfect cone of Triplosporites 

 described by Brongniart, and with the cones of Selaginella, and the . 

 reproductive organs of Isoetes. 



The most conclusive evidence yet obtained as to the nature of the 

 materials forming coal has been communicated to me by my colleague 

 Mr. Carruthers. He obtained from a five-feet bed of coal at South 

 Ouram, near Halifax, a number of calcareous concretions ("ball- 

 stones") which in crystallizing inclosed the materials of the bed 

 (which are all around converted into coal) before they were yet thus 

 altered. Thin sections were prepared for microscopic examination, 

 and they exhibit the fruits, leaves, stems, branches, roots, and 

 rootlets of the ordinary plants of the Carboniferous period, such as 

 Ferns, SigiUaria, Lepidodendron, Calamites, etc., in precisely the 

 same condition as the plant-structures occur in beds of valley-peat 

 forming at the present day — the difference being only in the kind 

 of plants of which the two formations are composed. The coal 



1 Prof. Huxley's generalization as to all bituminous coals teing larsrel)' made up 

 of these bodies has never been accept3d by geologists, and is certainly opposed to 

 many well-known and recognized facts regarding the formation of coal. 



