444 PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 21, 



fragment can of course be made by any one who can intelligently 

 compare a specimen with, a drawing or a description ; but the inter- 

 pretation of the affinities of a fossil or the restoration of a plant from 

 the few fragments known, can be accomplished only by one who has 

 some acquaintance with li\ing organisms, and with the essential and 

 non-essential characters which combine or separate them. When 

 this knowledge is wanting, a lively imagination supplies its place 

 to the complete satisfaction of the investigator, but to the great 

 injury of science. From its very nature, moreover, an imaginative 

 interpretation is more tenaciously adhered to by its author than if 

 it were the legitimate deduction from known facts ; and it is more 

 satisfactory, because it does not present the difficulties that are 

 always encountered in real life. It is quite in keeping with this 

 that a considerable contributor to the subject of fossil-botany has 

 declared that a knowledge of recent plants is a serious hindrance to 

 the investigation of fossil vegetables — and that another has recently 

 expounded in a science-lecture his important determination of the 

 affinities of Le^idodendron and Ccdamites to Lycopodium and Equi- 

 setum, although his descriptions make it evident that he never has 

 examined, and probably never has seen a single specimen of either a 

 club-moss or a mare's-tail in his life, 



I propose in this paper to call attention to some of the specimens 

 which I have either met with in collections, or have had sent to me 

 as fossil plants, but which have no connexion with the vegetable 

 kingdom. Instead of setting them aside as non-vegetable, I have 

 taken advantage of the opportunities afforded by my connexion with 

 the British Museum, and especially of the important assistance of 

 my friend Mr, Thomas .Davies, to determine what they are. 



It would be curious to trace such errors in scientific works, and 

 show how frequently careful observers have thought that they had 

 the most perfect foliage in dendritic crystals, and beautiful wood- 

 structure in stalagmites. But I have encountered errors more 

 remarkable than these, now happily exploded. Among others I may 

 mention : — a curious form of calamite from a particular bed in the 

 South Wales coal-field which turned out to be the fragment of the 

 handle of a Wedgewood basalt tea-pot ; a branching part of the root 

 of a great tree, the remainder of which was yet in situ and could be 

 obtained, converted into metallic lead ; and a fragment of exogenous 

 wood showing the openings of the medullary rays, which was a sin- 

 gularly altered piece of shale or slate from the wall of a vitrified 

 fort. 



The first specimen to which I would ask special attention is a 

 supposed fruit figured and described by Sternberg in his ' Plora der 

 Vorwelt,' tab, ix. fig, 2, as Carpolites umbonatus. These are round, 

 flattened bodies, with a glazy polished surface and a central nucleus 

 (PI, XIX. figs. 12-17) ; they sometimes separate from the matrix 

 enveloping them, and then appear to be fruits, with their pericarp 

 converted into a thin shining layer of coal, like the Trigonocarpons 

 that are found in similar beds. On careful examination, however, it 

 is seen that the glazy surface is not produced by a foreign substance, 



