SOME ACCOUNT OE AN UNDESCRIBED 

 EOSSIL ERUIT. m 



Read June 15th, 1847. 



The following imperfect account of a singularly beautiful 

 and instructive silicified Possil has been hastily drawn up, 

 to supply in some measure the possible want of any other 

 memoir for the present Meeting. 



The remarks which I am enabled to make, from detached 

 memoranda, on so short a notice, Avill principally serve to 

 explain the accompanying drawings, which I have carefully 

 superintended, and which exhibit a very satisfactory micro- 

 scopic analysis of its structure, and do great credit to the 

 artistical talent of Mr. George Sowerby, jun. 



The only specimen of this fossil known to exist was 

 brought to London in 1843 by M. Roussell, an intelhgent 

 dealer in objects of natural history. His account of it was, 

 that it had been in the possession of Baron Roget, an 

 amateur collector in Paris, for about thirty years ; that after 

 his death it was brought to pubHc sale with the rest of his 

 collection, but no offer being made nearly equal to the sum 

 he paid for it, which was 600 francs, it was bought in. It 

 was purchased here from M. Roussell jointly by the British 

 Museum, the Marquis of Northampton, and myself, for 

 nearly £30. It seems to have entirely escaped the notice 

 of the naturalists of Paris. Nothing else is known of its 

 history, but from its obvious analogy in structure and in its 

 mineral condition with Lepidostrobus, it may be conjec- 

 tured to belong to the same geological formation. 



The specimen is evidently the upper half of a Strobilus 



