A R T I C L E X. 



ON FUOOIDBS IN THE COAL F ORM AT ION S.*— [With a Plate. 



BT LBO L ESQ II Kit E U X. 



Bead May 18th, I860. 



§1. DISCOVERY OP FOCOIDES IN THE COAL MEASURES OP SCIENTIFIC IMPORTANCE. 



The scarcity of Fucoidal remains in the strata of the true Coal Measures is so re- 

 markable that it is questionable whether any species of true marine Alga) has hereto- 

 fore been described from these formations. Up to 183G one specimen of Fucoides only is 

 mentioned in Thompson's Outlines of Mineralogy, Geology, and Mineral Analysis, at the 

 end of a catalogue of fossil plants of the Coal Measures, containing 290 species, under 

 37 genera.-}- Since that time, none of the palaeontologists who have enumerated or de- 

 scribed coal plants, have noticed a single species of Fncoides from the Carboniferous 

 formations, either of Europe or of America, except the doubtful forms which I have 

 noticed in a former paper.J Considered in itself, therefore, the discovery of true Fucoidal 

 remains in strata ascertained to belong to the Coal Measures, is a subject of some scien- 

 tific interest. This fact, moreover, is intimately connected with the question of the dis- 

 tribution of Fucoidal remains in formations of different ages, and of their value and sig- 

 nificance for the identification of the strata where they arc found. It bears also upon the 

 problem of the economy of marine Alga? in nature : that is, of the amount and worth 

 of the materials which they have brought and still bring to the economizing forces of 

 this omnipotent treasurer. Viewed under these various aspects, the subject may be con- 

 sidered indeed of some scientific importance. 



§2. HABITAT OF THE FUCOIDES HERE EXAMINED. 



The habitat or the position occupied by the plants described here, is somewhat peculiar. 

 They were found attached or flattened on the lower surface of a thin stratum of limestone, 

 immediately overlaying a bed of coal six to eighteen inches thick. The Fucoides, for they 

 belong evidently to a kind of marine plants, have thus grown, either as a part of the ma- 



* In these remarks, the term Fucoides is used in its general sense, as representing remains of evidently marine 

 plants, or Alg;«, whose relation to living species is obscure or not jet fully ascertained. 

 f Quoted by J. P. Lesley, Manual of Coal, p. 219. 

 | Silliman's Journal (2), vol. xxxii, p. 194. 

 VOL. xni. — 40 



