GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE CHAROPHYTA. 75 



group. Dr. Wieland in 1914 (29) recorded the discovery 

 of similar bodies in tlie Hamilton Shales of Missouri 

 (a higher horizon), and regarded them as undoubted 

 Charophytes, giving them the name Chara devonica. 

 Prof. Seward (22), pp. 225-6, says of them : "Without 

 going into the arguments for or against placing these 

 fossils in the Charece, they may at least be mentioned 

 as possible, but not certain Palaeozoic forms of Chara, 

 or an allied genus." Quite recently Dr. Bell (1) has 

 published the results of a careful investigation of the 

 matter, in which he points out that the internal structure 

 of these bodies, as well figured by Ulrich (26) (see 

 Fig. 27 a, b), does not correspond with that of a Charophyte, 

 and adds, " The spiral ridges are restricted to the outer 

 wall and are a part or ornamentation of the wall itself, 

 so that they afford no evidence of a Chara construction 

 in support of the superficial appearance." 



From the evidence adduced by Dr. Bell and the 

 examination of specimens with which he has kindly 

 furnished me I think that their affinity with the 

 Charophyta is extremely doubtful. 



Karpinsky, in a weU-elaborated and excellently illus- 

 trated memoir (5), has described and figured a number 

 of fossil organisms of the Devonian period, from Germany, 

 Russia, and North America, which he classes imder a 

 general heading Trochilishen, and which he considers to 

 be related to the Charofhyta. He divides his Trochi- 

 lisken into two genera, Sycidium, G. Sandb., and Trochi- 

 liscus, Panz. The organisms included in the former 

 cannot, I think, belong to the Charophyta, and I under- 

 stand are usually referred to the calcareous Siphonece. 

 The author would appear to have been misled by some 

 of Dr. Stache's illustrations of tuberculate-fruited fossil 

 Charas (which he reproduces), and in which the tubercles 

 on adjacent spiral-cells happen to coincide in position, 

 and so give an appearance of imperfect interrupted 

 longitudinal ridges to the fruit. In the second genus, 

 Trochiliscus, Karpinsky includes the Devonian organisms 

 from Ohio, already referred to, and three others from 



