.7. W. Dau 



Spore-cases in Coals. 



Torbane Hill mineral in the same year. In 1855 the latter 

 microscopist showed me in London slices exhibiting round 

 bodies of this kind, very similar to those now described by 

 Huxley ; but at that time I regarded them as concretionary, 

 though Prof Quekett was disposed to consider them organic. 

 Mr. Carruthers has summed up most of these facts in his ac- 

 count of his genus Flemingites in the Geological Magazine for 

 October, 1865. The subject has also attracted the attention of 

 microscopists in connection with the Tasmanite, or " white coal ' 

 of Tasmania, which is composed in great part of the spore case- 

 of ferns. 



I suppose that the oldest spore-cases known are those descri- 

 bed by Hooker from the Ludlow formation of the Upper Siki- 

 rian ; but these, if really spore-cases, are diiferent in structure 

 from those ordinarily found in the coal-formation, more espe- 

 cially in the great thickness of their walls, and I am not aware 

 that they have anywhere been found in considerable quantities. 

 The oldest bed of spore-cases known to me, is that at Kettle 

 Point, Lake Huron. It is a bed of brown bituminous shale, 

 burning with much flame, and under a lens is seen to be studded 

 with flattened disc-like bodies scarcely more than a hundredth 

 of an inch in diameter, which under the microscope are found to 

 J 2 be spore-cases, shghtly papil- 



late externally, and with a 

 point of attachment on one 

 side and a sHt more or less 

 elongated and gaping on the 

 other, figs. 1, 2, 3. I have 

 proposed for these bodies the 

 name Sporangites Huronensis. 

 When slices of the rock are 

 made, its substance is seen to 

 be filled with these bodies. 

 which, viewed as transparent 

 objects, appear yellow like 

 amber, and show little struc- 

 ture, except that the walls caii. 

 in some cases, be distinguished 

 from the internal cavity, and 

 may be seen to inclose patches of flocculent or granular 

 flatter. In the shale containing them there are also va-* — 

 '''*""* -- - translucent granules which may be the 



tbe latti 



spore.s. "" "—— - •■ 



The bed at Kettle Point is stated in the report of the Geologi- 

 cal burvey to be 12 to 14 feet in thickness ; but to what degree 

 either in its thickness or horizontal extent it retains the charac- 

 ters above described, I do not know. It belongs to the Upper 

 devonian, being supposed to be a representative of the Genesee 



