1858.] PHILLIPS FOSSIL FRUIT. 47 



fruit, is a sort of collar (fig. 1, c) ; its external face is striated ; 



Fig. 1. — Fossil Fruit from the Upper Wealden Beds in Swanage 

 Bay. View of the terminal surface, showing the origin of seven 

 ridges, and space for the eighth. Magnified six times. 



c. The collar. 



within it, towards the axis, a depression. Between the other pro- 

 minences a similarly-placed arched depression is traceable, and there 

 seems nothing to prevent the supposition that a similar collar may 

 have existed. 



The eight ribs and the intervening hollow surfaces (see figs. 1 

 and 2) are striated by radiating vessels, which vary in size from 

 WO" ^^ TdVo" ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^ diameter (figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7). They 

 are pressed together, very continuous, occasionally dichotomous ; and 

 in this case, the divided vessels lie side by side (figs. 4 and 5). 

 In fig. 5, appears a curious example of this dichotomy both up- 

 wards and downwards. They are all jointed at intervals which 

 frequently measure about four diameters of the larger vessels. 

 The surfaces are marked by projections, which, for the most part, 

 appear as mere roughness (figs. 5 and 6), but in a few cases resemble 

 fine oblique parallel striae, g-j^^ of an inch apart, and meeting the 

 sides of the tube at an angle of 40° (fig. 7). In other cases they 

 appear as small puncta, ranged in one line, at intervals equal to half 

 the diameter of the tube, or scattered in a less regular manner. 

 These last-mentioned observations are difficult, even dubious, and 

 require good single lenses of | inch or i inch focus to be used for 

 comparison with the results of the compound microscope. 



The pyrites appears to be moulded in the cavities of the original 

 vessels, the seeming joints being caused by original transverse plates, 

 and the small projections corresponding to tubular openings and slits 

 in the walls, or to internal depressions having these forms. 



The fibrous body is partly surrounded by a thick dark mass of mi- 

 nutely granulated pyrites, which, under the microscope, suggests the 

 question of its being deposited in the cavities of a thick cellular en- 

 velope. By an accidental fracture through the pyrites in the part of 

 the specimen opposite to the terminal surface already described, the 

 internal cavity is laid open, lined with finely crystallized bisul- 



