52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the circular to the elliptical. In a longitudinal division the tubes or 

 woody fibres are seen to be uniform, and to have their walls studded 

 with nearly circular discs or areolae disposed in double rows, the 

 discs being irregularly alternate, as in the recent Ai^aucaria. In 

 a few examples spiral vessels are discernible. The cone here deli- 

 neated (fig. 1) was found among the wood at Selmeston about two 

 years since, and is the only known specimen. It is five and a half 

 inches long, and at the greatest circumference measures six inches. 

 M. Adolphe Brongniart, to whom I transmitted a model and descrip- 

 tion of this fossil, observes, " Le raodele en platre du cone que vous 

 m'avez envoye est assez difficile a juger sans avoir vu I'echantillon 

 lui-meme, et par consequent mon opinion ne peut etre que fort 

 hasarde, mais je serai plutot porte a penser que c'est une jeune tige 

 de Cycadee qu'un fruit de conifere. Ce pourrait aussi etre un fruit 

 de Zamia ; mais I'examen de I'echantillon en nature, et surtout sa 

 coupe transversale, serait necessaire pour avoir une opinion positive." 

 But although at first sight this fossil, as M. Brongniart remarks, 

 might be taken for the stem of a young cycadeous plant, the situa- 

 tion and small size of the stalk at the base (fig. L a), and the 

 appearance of the scales seem to warrant the conclusion that it is the 

 fruit of a Zamia. This opinion is supported by its analogy to the 

 beautiful cone from Kent, figured in the ' Fossil Flora of Great 

 Britain' as Zamia macrocephala (Foss. Flor. plate 125). From 

 this specimen the Sussex fossil differs, however, in its form, and 

 in the number, size and shape of its scales, which are more nu- 

 merous, smaller and more oblong than those of Z. macrocephala. 

 The specimen has fallen into the possession of another, or I should 

 have made a transverse section of it, as suggested by M. Adolphe 

 Brongniart. 



2. Abies Benstedi, Mantell. Plate II. fig. 2. a, b, c. 

 From the lower greensand near Maidstone, Kent. 



This beautiful cone was found by Mr. W. H. Bensted in the 

 quarry of Kentish rag near Maidstone, in which the remains of the 

 Iguanodon were discovered in 1834. In my late communication 

 on mollusliite, or the carbonized remains of the soft parts of mol- 

 lusca, a bed of drift wood is described, which occurs in the quarry 

 above-mentioned, associated with marine shells. It was in this 

 deposit that the fossil cone was found, a collocation which throws 

 some light on its nature and origin. The vegetable remains from 

 Mr. Bensted's quarry are referable to the acoiyledonous^ monocoty- 

 ledonous, and dicotyledonous classes. They consist of Fucus Tar- 

 gionii and some indeterminable species of the same genus ; of stems, 

 and apparently traces of the foliage, of endogenous trees allied to 

 the Draccena'^y and of trunks and branches of Coniferae. The wood 

 occurs both in a calcareous and siliceous state. I have a portion of 

 a small stem eight inches long, which is converted into black flint 



* Dracana Benstedi of Mr. Konig; the specimens are now in the British 

 Museum. 



