162 PK0CEEDING8 OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



in any case, owe their origin entirely to land-plants. The number of 

 species of plants is inconsiderable in proportion to the large number 

 of specimens which Nordenskiold and Malmgren have collected. I 

 received the following species : — Calamites radiatus, Br. (C. transi- 

 tionis, Gopp.), CardiojJteris frondosa, Gopp. sp., C. polymorplia, 

 Gopp. sp., Palceopteris Bcemeriana, Gopp. sp., SpTienopteris ScJiim- 

 peri, Gopp., Lepidodendron Veliheimianum, Sternb., L. commutatum, 

 Schimp. (Ulodendron), L. Wickianum, Hr., L. Carneggianum, Hr., 

 Lepidophyllum Ecemeri, Hr., Knorria imbricata, Sternb., Kn. aci- 

 cularis, Gopp., Cydostigma Kiltorkense, Haught., C. minutum, 

 Haught., Halonia tuberculosa, Brgn. ?, Stigmaria ficoldes, Sternb., 

 Cardiocarpum punctulatmn, Gopp., and G. ursinum, Hr., — in all 

 eighteen species, of which only three have not yet been discovered 

 in other places. The greater number of the plants, and all the most 

 abundant forms, belong to known, and partly to widely spread 

 species, and thus furnish us with the means of comparing this flora 

 with those of other lands, and of the different subdivisions of the 

 coal-formation. It contains three species in common with the Coal- 

 measures ; but of these Lepidodendron Veltheimianum is the only one 

 of importance ; for the determination of Halonia tuberculosa is not 

 certain, and the Stigmariw, consisting only of rhizomes of diiferent 

 plants, do not afford sufiicient data for a comparison of species. 



The flora of Bear Island differs, therefore, much from that of the 

 Coal-measures, but quite as much on the other hand from that of 

 the Devonian. If we compare it with the flora of the Cyp)ris-shales 

 of Saalfeld, in Thuringia, which belong to the Upper Devonian, we 

 do not find a single species in common. Altogether the Devonian 

 flora of Germany has no species in common with Bear Island ; for 

 the statement that Calamites radiatus occurs in the Devonian is 

 only founded on its presence at Kunzendorf, in Silesia, which loca- 

 lity belongs rather to the Lower Carboniferous than to the Devonian. 



With the Lower Carboniferous flora the relations of that of Bear- 

 Island are quite different. Of the eighteen species, fifteen occur in 

 other localities in the Lower Carboniferous formation, ten in the 

 Mountain Limestone, and nine in the Millstone-grit. It cannot, there- 

 fore, be doubted that the Bear-Island flora belongs to the Lower 

 Carboniferous series. If we compare it carefully with fossil deposits 

 of other lands, even neglecting the stratigraphical relations of the 

 rocks containing the plants, it is clear that it has the greatest re- 

 semblance to the flora of the sandstones and shales lying imme- 

 diately under the Mountain Limestone, and that it forms a distinct 

 stage (etage) of the Lower Carboniferous, constituting a passage 

 into the Upper Devonian. We may call this stage the Bear-Island 

 or Ursa stage (Ursa-Stufe). 



To this Ursa-stage belong the following plant-bearing localities : 

 — Kiltorkan, and generally the Yellow Sandstones and Carboniferous 

 Shales of the south-west of Ireland ; the Greywacke of the Vosges 

 and the southern Black Porest ; the Verneuilii-shales of Aix, and 

 St. John's in New Brunswick (Canada). As several of these have 

 till now been regarded as Upper Devonian, it will be necessary 



