20 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIES. 



Tceniopteris vittata and Aletho^teris Whithiensis occur freely in the 

 lowest bed of the Brown Jura (Lower Oxfordian) near Scarborough, 

 — a fact which should not be lost sight of. 



Another opportunity for prosecuting a research in this direction 

 was afforded me by a very interesting communication of a number 

 of specimens from Dr. Gobel, who accompanied, as Geologist, the 

 Imperial Eussian Expedition to Chorassan under the direction of 

 Dr. N. von Khanikoff. These fossils he collected south of the Caspian 

 Sea in the province of Astrabad (E. Persia), east of the village Tasch, 

 in the Alborus Hills. They were found in a coal-shale 2 feet thick, 

 cropping out amongst alternating beds of clay, coaly clay, coal, and 

 sandstone. 



Dr. Gobel had hoped that they would indicate true coal, although 

 as yet, after ten years' researches, M. Abich had found none in the 

 neighbouring Caucasus. The fossils, however, do not substantiate 

 this hope, but certainly supply an analogy to the Jurassic coal-beds 

 discovered by Abich in Imerethia and Daghestan. 



The chief plant-remains of the darkish-grey shales before-men- 

 tioned, and containing somewhat fruit-like, roundish, and lougish 

 argillaceous nodules, of inorganic origin, belong to a Pterophyllum 

 very closely allied to that from Imerethia, referred to by me as 

 Pterophyllum Ahichianum, and indeed can scarcely be regarded as a 

 distinct species ; on this point, however, I have not quite satisfied 

 myself. This plant is so plentiful that it occurs in every fragment 

 of the whole collection, and is here and there associated with fronds 

 of Nilssonia Sternhergii, Goepp., which occurs also in the Lias near 

 Bayreuth. Alethopteris Whithiensis and TcBniopteris vittata are as 

 plentiful as the true Lias plants; and as a true characteristic plant 

 occurs the Camptopteris Nilssonii, not yet known in the Caucasus, 

 but found at Hor in Sconia, near Halberstadt, near Coburg, at 

 Yeitlahm near Culm, at Eantasie near Bayreuth in Bavaria, and of 

 late found by Andrae in the Lias near Steierdorf in the Banat. 

 Some fronds of Zamites distans (found at all the other localities 

 except Hor) also come from the Alborus. Dr. Gobel's collection 

 contains also a Fern in fructification, as well as an Asplenites and an 

 Equisetites, both of which are probably new and worthy of being 

 figured. 



Erom the above it appears that there is as yet no evidence of the 

 existence of the old Coal-measures in the Caucasus or the Alborus ; 

 the coal-beds hitherto found in those regions belonging to the Jui'a 

 formation, and, according to the plants, to the Lower Lias. 



[T. R. J.] 



