Prof. E. W. Claijpole — FossU Tree from the TJ. 8ilurian. 563 



and the high grounds of Texas to the south-west — all at yet 

 greater distances. It is somewhat difBciilt to conceive of the pre- 

 servation of a filmy frond of Sphenophyllum during a voyage of so 

 great a distance, and its entombment in mid-ocean in a recognizable 

 condition. The same objections do not apply with equal force to 

 the preservation of a stem of a tree, if Protostigma was such, though 

 it may be doubted if any other case has come to light of the discovery 

 of undoubted fossil wood 500 miles from the nearest contempo- 

 raneous land. 



In regard to the fossil described in the present paper, the case is 

 difi'erent. About the close of the Lower Silurian age an uplift 

 occurred along a line reaching from Ontario, in Canada, to Ten- 

 nessee — the forerunner apparently of that later movement which 

 elevated the Alleghany Mountains. This uplift was an area of dry 

 land during the interval which, in this region, elapsed between the 

 Lower and Upper Silurian formations. The return of the sea is 

 marked by a conglomerate of Lower Silurian pebbles in a matrix 

 of Clinton Limestone. " This proves that, before the deposition of 

 the Clinton, the Cincinnati group was consolidated into rock and 

 raised into cliffs and shore-lines, which were eaten away by the 

 waves at the ocean-level to form a pebbly beach." — " Geology of 

 Ohio," vol. i. p. 103. On this Cincinnati Island of Upper Silurian 

 age there probably grew the tree of which a part produced the 

 impression above described and named. At the same time the 

 scarcity of such relics (no other having yet come to light), where 

 the land was at most but a few miles distant, brings out more 

 strongly the improbability of finding such remains in the Lower 

 Silurian rocks of the same locality, when the Island of Cincinnati 

 had not come into existence. 



The Silurian Botany of Europe is equally scanty. The Lyco- 

 podiaceous spore-cases (PachytJieca, Hooker) from the Ludlow bone- 

 bed ' correspond, in date, with the plants from the Lower Helderberg 

 of Michigan. The Sagenarice (Lepidodendra) of the Upper Silurian 

 of Lobenstein, and of Hostin, Bohemia, are of similar age. So is 

 Hostinella also from Hostin. — Bigsby's "Thesaurus Siluricus," p. 194. 

 Some plant-remains have been found in the Upper Silurian rocks of 

 the Eastern Har'tz by Ad. Ecemer, see " Siluria," last edition, p. 391. 

 In the Geological Magazine for October, 1877, Count Saporta 

 has described a Fern, from the Lower or Middle Silurian Slates 

 of Angers, in France, as Eopteris Andegaversis. In 1859 Sir E. 

 Murchison mentioned the existence of faint traces of terrestrial, 

 vegetation in the Lower Silurian rocks of Scotland (" Siluria," 

 p. 169). These are all the instances with which I am acquainted of 

 remains of land-plants in pre-Devonian rocks in the Old World. I 

 omit Eophyton as far too doubtful to be cited in evidence. " The 

 Eophjton of Torell, from a much lower horizon in Sweden," says Dr. 

 Dawson, "I regard as a doubtful plant, similar forms being apparently 

 produced by impressions of feet or of fins upon mud. . . . Whatever 

 the nature of these forms, they are present in the Primordial of 

 ' These little organisms kaTe been of late referred to Algee. — Editoe. 



