PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



POSTPONED PAPERS. 



1. On the Carboniferous Flora of Bear Island (lat. 74° 30' N.). 

 By Prof. Oswald Heer, F.M.G.S. 



[Cojnmunicated by Sir Charles Lyell.] 



(Bead November 9, 1870 * .) 



It has long been known that strata of Coal and Mountain Limestone 

 are found in Bear Island ; but the true geological conditions of 

 this island were first ascertained by Professor Nordenskiold, who 

 visited it with the Swedish expedition of 1868. He and Professor 

 Malmgren collected a large number of fossil plants out of the coal 

 and the associated rocks. These plants, according to Nordenskiold, 

 point to the following relations of the strata : — 



Siliceous schists. 



Froductus-livaestone with large, thick-shelled s]yecieH ot Productus. 



Spirifer-limestone with gypsum. Many Spiriferi, some of them 

 of colossal size. 



C^athoph^ Hum-bearing limestone and dolomite. 



Sandstone with intercalated coal and clay-shale. Contains the plants. 



Russian-island limestone. Greyish yellow dolomite with beds of calca- 

 reous shales. 



Red Devonian (?) shales. 



The plants, therefore, were found under the Mountain Limestone. 

 The Eussian-island limestone contains no determinable fossils ; and 

 its geological position is therefore doubtful, as is also that of the red 

 shales, which last Nordenskiold is inclined to place in the Devonian. 

 The plants lie partly in the coal itself, partly in the sandstone, and 

 partly in the dark-coloured shale, which in some places is quite 

 filled with plant-remains. They are all land-plants; no trace of 

 marine plants or animals is to be found. The whole deposit containing 

 the plants is therefore probably of freshwater origin ; and the coals, 

 * See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. p. 1. 



