CALAMITES and CALAMODENDUON. 



I. Bibliography. 



§ 1. During many years the genus Calamites, so common in our Coal-measures, was 

 generally considered to be a reed-like plant, and hence its name. Very excellent figures of 

 the different species of this genus, with their roots and branches, are given by M. Adolphe 

 Brongniart in his ' Histoire des Vegetaux fossiles,' and by Messrs. Lindley and Hutton in 

 the ' Fossil Flora.' All their specimens, however, gave little, if any, evidence of the internal 

 structure of the plant. Afterwards Brongniart, in his ' Tableau des Genres de Vegetaux 

 fossiles,' after reviewing the labours of Cotta, Unger, Petzholt, and others, thought it 

 better to divide the genus Calamites into Calamitea and Calamodendron, evidence having 

 been obtained of the outer woody cylinder of the latter, which was not believed to occur 

 in the former. 



§ 2. Afterwards Mr. J. S. Dawes, who obtained much more perfect specimens than 

 the Continental authors appear to have possessed, gave a most useful paper on the subject, 

 which is printed in vol. vii of the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' and he 

 there states (p. 198) that " on lately examining a specimen of Sigillaria reniformis, the 

 tissues appear so much to resemble those of the Calamite as to prove the close connection 

 of these two genera ; in fact, all those fossils of this family with the broad outer zones of 

 woody tissue, such as Calamitea striata of Cotta, will in all probability prove to be some 

 species of small-ribbed Sigillaria!' 



About the same time Dr. Dawson gave a description of upright Calamites found by 

 him near Pictou, Nova Scotia,^ but he does not adduce any evidence as to their structure 

 or nature. 



§ 3. The two last-named authors did not appear to be aware of the pubhcation of a 

 paper by me " On Fossil Calamites found standing in an erect position in the Carboni- 

 ferous Strata near Wigan, Lancashire."^ In that communication, after describing at 

 length the specimens exposed in the railway-cutting at Pemberton Hill, about two miles 



1 'Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' vol. vii, p. 194, 1851. 



2 Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, July 6, 1847, and printed in 

 the 'London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine,' ser. 3, vol. xxxi, pp. 259-266. 



