54f PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



nounced it to be a compressed fruit, and the following notice was 

 accordingly inserted in the work above-named : " A fruit has lately 

 been found in the lower chalk near Lewes ; it is of a reddish brown 

 colour, and of a flattened ovate form ; about two inches in length 

 and an inch and a half in breadth. The surface exhibits a fibrous 

 appearance, and the surrounding chalk is tinged with a bituminous 

 stain." 



A short time since I detected in the cabinet of Mrs. Smith the 

 only other specimen I have seen. A slight inspection was sufficient 

 to determine its vegetable origin, for several seeds were imbedded 

 in its substance, and others had been detached in clearing it from 

 the chalk. I am indebted to Dr. Robert Brown for the careful 

 examination of this fossil, and he informed me that he knew of no 

 fruit to which it bore any near affinity, but suggested that the ori- 

 ginal was probably a succulent compound berry, the seeds appearing 

 to have been imbedded in a pulpy substance, like the fruit of the 

 mulberry, which is a spurious compound berry, formed by a partial 

 union of the enlarged and fleshy calyces, each enclosing a dry 

 membranous pericarp. 



I despair of arriving at more satisfactory conclusions as to the 

 nature of the original until other examples of this curious fossil shall 

 be discovered, and have therefore placed it in the provisional genus 

 Carpolithes. 



The specimen and the detached seeds have been drawn by M. 

 Dinkel with scrupulous fidelity, and these delineations will convey a 

 more correct idea of the originals than any detailed description. 



I will conclude this brief communication with the remark, that 

 the occurrence of the fruit and foliage of coniferous plants in the 

 Wealden, and the collocation of the cones and wood above-de- 

 scribed with numerous remains of the reptiles peculiar to that for- 

 mation, indicate that these terrestrial vegetables were also drifted into 

 the chalk ocean from the country of the Iguanodon. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATE. 



Fig. 1. Zamia Sassexiensis, n. sp. from the lower greensand, Selmeston, Sussex. 



a. The remains of the stalk. 

 Fig. 2. Ahies Benstedi, n. sp. from the lower greensand, Maidstone, Kent. 



2 a. External surface of the cone : the hole at the base is occasioned by the 



removal of the stalk. 

 2 b. Longitudinal section, showing the seeds imbedded in the bases of the 

 scales. 



2 c. Enlarged views of sections of two scales, each containing a seed. 



Fig. 3. Carpolithes Smithice, n. sp. from the white chalk, Kent. In the cabinet of 

 Mrs. Smith of Tunbridge Wells. 



3 a, 3 d. Views of the extern^d surface in two different aspects. 

 3 c. Four detached seeds. 



3 d. Portions of the pericarp detached, with several seeds imbedded. 



