168 



BRITISH FOSSIL CRUSTACEA. 



Formation. — Coal-measures. In the " Ferny Metal" beneath the " Seven-foot Coal" 

 or *' Ram's Mine." 



Locality. — Pendleton Colliery, near Manchester. 



The specimens are preserved in the Museum of Practical and Economic Geology, 

 Jermyn Street. 



NOTE ON SOME SUPPOSED FRAGMENTS OF A EURYPTERUS. 

 By W. Carruthers, Esq., F.R.S., &c, &c. 



{Communicated to the Author.) 



The specimens figured and described by the late Mr. Salter as portions of a 

 Eurypterus, regarding which you have expressed to me doubts, are certainly fragments of 



a large Equisetaceous plant. They are very different in their 

 general aspect from the common Catamites of the Coal- 

 measures, and belong to a group of plants whose known remains 

 are very fragmentary, and about the precise nature and affinities 

 of which there has been considerable difference of opinion. 



In the British Museum there is a fragment of this plant 

 showing portions of four joints of the stem (Fig. 56) ; 

 two of these joints exhibit the oblong scars of the leaves, 

 and a third has a series of large round scars, which have 

 been produced by a whorl of axillary appendages. The 

 surface of the stem is smooth, and immediately below the 

 large round scars there are a number of cracks, through 

 which the mud filling the medullary cavity has been pushed. 

 In form and position these exactly agree with the " tear- 

 drop" ornaments on Mr. Salter's fragments (see Fig. 56). 



The counterpart of this specimen was figured by the 

 Rev. H. Steinhauer, in his very valuable paper on " British 

 Fossil Plants," published in the ' Transactions of the American 

 Philosophical Society' (vol. i, new series, p. 286, pi. vi, fig. 1). This remarkably acute 

 observer, however, referred it to his Phytolithus parmatus {Ulodendron parmatum, Carr.). 



third specimen is more waved along its anterior curved border, and the hinder border is straighter than in 

 Jordan's figure. These are from the roof-shale of "Top Little Vein" Camerton Collieries, near Bath, and 

 were obtained by W. G. M'Murtrie, Esq., of Camerton, who has paid much attention to the Geology and 

 Palaeontology of this interesting district. 



Both the Manchester and the Camerton specimens are from Plant-beds, and are associated with 

 remains of Neuropteris, Pecopteris, &c. I have thought it proper to notice these remains here, but as they 

 are not referable to the Eurypterida I shall figure and describe them at more detail elsewhere. They 

 deserve, however, a passing notice in connection with the history of Mr. Salter's Eurypterus mammatus. 



Fig. 56. — Phytolithus parmatus, 

 Steinh. Ulodendron parma- 

 tum, Carr, Coal Measures, 

 reduced \ natural size. 



