» 198 L. Lesquereux on the Coal Formations of the United States. 
bling pasteboard, whose surface bears the traces of the remains 
of very small, innumerable fragments of thin filaments, mixed 
with an indistinct compound of what appears to be very small 
detached oval leaflets. At first, I compared them to, and found 
them to resemble those indistinct forms of leaves and stems, 
not enough to authorize the conclusion that these remains are 
those of certain mosses. 
4, Filices, (Ferns). 
The following remark of Mr. Brongniart in his Tableau des 
genres, (p. 15) is fully confirmed by the examination of all the 
specimens of fossil-ferns that I have been able to collect from 
our coal measures. He says: “ that he is satisfied that in the classt- 
Jication of fossil ferns, we must establish genera from the attentwe 
sides of a common narrow rachis, resembling the medial nerve 
of a Pecopteris. The whole bears some resemblance to 4 fruit- 
ing branch of our common Botrychium Virginicum. It might be 
supposed from the disposition of the sporanges, which is like 
that of Asterocarpus Sternbergii, Gipp., that the substance of the - 
* Second vol. of the Geol. report of the State Survey of Arkansas. 
