344 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 19, 



will be seen by the section, fig. 8. p. 336, that the beds in this quarry 

 are below the level of the Nummulites IcBvigatus bed. 



In the principal quarry, the Middle Brussels beds (III. «, Table 

 XII. p. 334), seen in the highest part of the section, consist of sands 

 10 feet thick, with several layers of stone. Some of these layers are 

 almost continuous and afford flat paving-stones. These beds contain 

 both argillaceous and calcareous matter, and in some of them occur 

 the oval-shaped fossil Fruits (Cocos Burtini, Brongniart), referred to 

 Nipadites by Mr. Bowerbank. Some of these are silicified, and the 

 wood both of Palms and dicotyledonous trees are found in the same 

 strata perfectly silicified. 



At the time of my visit the workmen showed me the trunk of an 

 exogenous tree with forty rings of annual growth, which they had 

 just extracted. It had lain in a horizontal position and was bored by 

 Teredines. Capt. Le Hon also possesses the stool of a Palm-tree, 

 perfectly silicified, consisting of the base of the trunk, which seems to 

 have been broken off short at about the level of the soil, and to which 

 numerous air-roots or rootlets remain attached, such as palms very 

 commonly throw out above the surface of the soil, the whole exhi- 

 biting structure beautifully preserved. Captain Nelson, to whom I 

 showed this specimen (Capt. Le Hon having kindly allowed me to 

 bring it over to England), recognized it as bearing a striking resem- 

 blance to what are called " palm-cups " in the West Indies. When 

 an old cocoa-nut tree decays and breaks off near the ground, the 

 central woody portion, which in endogenous trees consists of a spongy 

 tissue, contracts more than the external or more solid wood, while the 

 roots scarcely shrink at all. This produces a convexity in the middle, 

 and may explain a similar cavity in the Schaerbeek fossil. The con- 

 cave surface of the broken and shrunk wood exhibits a great number 

 of small deep pits, caused by bundles of fibres having been pulled out 

 when the fracture took place. 



Nipadites, or the fossil Fruits of Palms. 



The most interesting remains of fossil plants in the Schaerbeek 

 quarries are those oval fruits already mentioned, which Burtin de- 

 scribed in his * Oryctographie de Bruxelles,' in 1784, and which he 

 regarded as cocoa-nuts. They have been named by Mr. Bowerbank 

 Nipadites, as being nearly allied to the Nipa fruticans, a palm which 

 abounds in the delta of the Ganges and other parts of Bengal, and is 

 the only living species of the genus known. M. Adolphe Brongniart 

 has adopted the same generic name, and has observed that some of 

 the fossil fruits of Brussels are sufiiciently perfect to show that they 

 want the ligneous endocarp marked by three pores, which is so cha- 

 racteristic of the cocoa-nut. 



Mr. Bowerbank* enumerates thirteen species of Nipadites from 

 the London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey, and considers that the 

 Schaerbeek fossils, which Capt. Le Hon kindly lent me to figure, be- 

 long to no less than four of his British species ; viz. — 



* ' Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clav,' 1840. 



