— 591 — 
and somewhat rigid framework, the remains of which, in the fossi- 
lized condition, exhibit a porous ot vesicular-vranulate structure 
Without any distinct trace of vascular bundles. 
Wherever the lamina, which was rather thick, is peripheral or 
free it is distantly serrate to coarsely round-dentate at the border, the 
teeth themselves often showing a vesicular structure or sealy granular 
surface comparable to thal of the rigid frame though on a small scale. 
The conception of sporangia is the more natural since the larger tuber- 
cles on the lamina are marked near the smallcr and more prominent 
end }y small umbilicoid pits or scars suggestive of Lhe pores of certain 
fern sporangia. 
On examining the specimens I was hardly convinced that the 
tubercles were to be correctly interpreted as fructifications. On the 
contrary the forms shown in the fragments, their large size, the cha- 
racters of the framework, the leathery aspect of the lamina, the va- 
riation in size and distribution of the tubercles and the apparent 
absence of all nervation led me to question the vegetable nature 
of the organism, notwithstanding the sporangioid appearance of the 
tubercles and the bilateral symmetry shown by one of the fra- 
gments 
The fossils seemed lo me rather lo suggest portions of the extre- 
mities and integument of some animal, more probably saurian or )a- 
trachian. 
Accordingly I submitted specimens or photographs of the fossil to 
a number of eminent American specialists in vertebrate paleontology, 
none of whom have been willing to regard the fossils as pertaing to 
their specialty. Consultation of various experts in carcinology, ich- 
thyology, and invertebrate palaeontology, has led to no better result. 
I therefore venture to describe the fossil, though greatly doubting the 
propriety of including it among fossil plants. 
The very peculiar characters shown by the fragments of frame 
work, the border, the lamina and the tubercles are so clear and distin- 
ctive as amply to serve for the diagnostic recognition, both generically 
and specifically, of these singular fossil remains. 
Since none of the fragments present are sufficiently complete to 
indicate, even synthetically, the shape of the organism as a whole, or 
its main proportions, I can only place before other palaeontologists, 
with so much detail as may be practicable, the data in hand, leaving 
to the experience ef others and to future discoveries the determination 
of the exact relations of the parts here represented and the nature of the 
