214 R. L. JACK AND E. ETHERIDGE, JTTN., ON PLANTS 



another terminated in hooks. One example showed the remains 

 of ligneous fibres ; and this only was regarded by Miller as of ter- 

 restrial origin. In Fife, he says, the vegetable remains are " dark 



impressions of stems confusedly mixed with what seem 



slender and pointed leaflets "*. In the Carmylie-Parish Quarries, 

 " irregularly grooved stems branching out into boughs at acute angles 

 were also noticed." 



In 1853 Dr. J. D. Hooker published a " Note on the Fossil Plants 

 from the Shetlands, collected by the Eight Hon. Henry Tufnell," 

 which are provisionally referred to two species of Calamites f. 



In 1855 Mr. C. W. Peach presented two short notes to the Royal 

 Geological Society of Cornwall (namely "A Notice of the discovery 

 of Land Plants and shells in the Lower Old Red Sandstone of Caith- 

 ness," and "A Note on the Fossil Flora of the Lower Old Red Sand- 

 stone of Wick, Caithness ")J, in which he respectively notices the 

 occurrence of wood at several localities near Thurso and Dunnet Head, 

 and records the discovery of land plants at Kilmster, near Wick. 



The Rev. J. Duncan described and figured, in Jeffrey's ' History 

 and Antiquities of Roxburghshire and adjacent Districts '§, pub- 

 lished in 1855, plant-remains from Denholm-Hill Quarry, con- 

 sisting of dichotomizing stems, regarded by the author as fucoidal, 

 another specimen with more or less alternate branches, which 

 he supposed to be a land plant, and, lastly, an organism described 

 as " the radical portion of what we cannot hesitate to call a 

 species of Calamite." 



In 1855 Hugh Miller read before the British Association a paper 

 " On the less-known Fossil Floras of Scotland "||, in which reference 

 was made to the bituminous nature and dark colour of the Caithness 

 Flagstones, the latter arising chiefly from the vegetable portion of 

 the contained organic matter. He further notices the discovery of 

 a Lepidodendron in the Caithness Flagstones at Clockbriggs Quarry, 

 and a form resembling the maiden-hair spleenwort, in the Ork- 

 ney Flags. At the same meeting, Mr. J. Miller, of Thurso, exhibited 

 a collection of plants from the Caithness Flagstones similar to that 

 described by Mr. H. Miller %. 



In 1857 the ' Testimony of the Rocks ' appeared **, with the 

 author's figures of many of the previously mentioned plants. Three 

 sectional figures of the Cromarty Conifer, examined by Prof. Nicol, 

 are given, magnified 40 diameters ft, and two vignettes of the sup- 

 posed fucoidal remains ££, regarded by Mr. Salter, however, as roots. 

 Reference is made to a " curious nondescript vegetable organism" 



* Afterwards pronounced bj r Prof. Nieol to be coniferous in character. 

 t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. ix. pp. 49, 50. 

 \ Trans. Royal Geol. Soc. Cornwall, vii. pp. 230 and 289. 

 § 2nd edit. 8to, p. 123, pi. vii. 

 I! Brit. -Assoc. Rep. 1855, Trans. Sect. p. 83. 

 1 Ibid. p. 85. 



** Testimony of the Rocks, or Geology in its bearings on the Two Theologies. 

 &c, 8vo. 



ff Ibid, p. 11. 



tJ Figs. 118 and 119. 



