8 



PENNSYLVANIAN SPORES OF ILLINOIS 



(vessels). Witham declined to speculate, 

 saying, " .... I shall not venture upon any 

 conjecture respecting them." Bennie and 

 Kidston (1886) pointed out that the traces 

 of organization of Witham, drawn for 

 Witham by W. MacGillivray, show many 

 megaspores and not monocotyledonous 

 vessels. It is also quite likely that numerous 

 small spores were present in Witham's 

 sections. His illustrations are shown at 

 100 X and on that basis many of the light 

 colored areas measure from 60 to 100 

 microns, which is distinctly within the size 

 range of small spores, and suggests the 

 presence of small spores in Witham's 

 sections. 



From 1840 to 1855 there appeared a 

 number of noteworthy papers on paleo- 

 botany and the origin of coal. Morris 

 (1840) is credited by Bennie and Kidston 

 (1886) to be the first to illustrate isolated 

 fossil megaspores. Others who contributed 

 were Bowman (1841), Phillips (1842), 

 and E. W. Binney (1848). One of the 

 most important contributions to the study 

 of isolated plant remains found in coal was 

 made by Franz Schulze in 1855. He dis- 

 covered that coal could be macerated with 

 chemicals (see page 9) without harm to the 

 botanical ingredients. Thus almost 100 

 years ago there were known two methods 

 (thin section and maceration) by which 

 the botanical ingredients of coal could be 

 studied microscopically. These methods 

 with minor refinements are used to this 

 day. 



From 1855 to 1881 little happened that 

 was directly related to the studies of spores 

 from coal beds. Reinsch's publications of 

 1881 and 1884 are well known. Reinsch's 

 publication in 1884 is an excellently illus- 

 trated two-volume work which has received 

 considerable attention. Schopf, Wilson, 

 and Bentall (1944) honored Reinsch with 

 Reinschospora. Species of this genus were 

 illustrated by Reinsch as were the now 

 recognized genera: Granulat'i-sporites, Tri- 

 quitrites, Reticulati-sporites , Punctati-spo- 

 rites, Raistrickia, Cirratriradites , Endospo- 

 rites, and possibly Denso-sporites. Reinsch 

 also illustrated many megaspores. He be- 

 lieved that the organisms found in coal from 



Russia and Saxony were of algal origin, and 

 that the flat expansion (flange) surround- 

 ing some of the spores was parasitic in 

 origin. 



James Bennie and Robert Kidston collab- 

 orated to publish an account of the spores 

 of the Carboniferous of Scotland in 1886, 

 Bennie's contribution being entirely geo- 

 logical, and Kidston's entirely botanical. 

 Kidston did not favor Reinsch's theory that 

 the organisms in coal were algal remains. 

 Kidston believed the organisms in question 

 to be spores, and that the flat expansion 

 surrounding certain types of spores was an 

 integral part of the spore on which it 

 occurred. 



The period following Bennie and Kid- 

 ston's paper until 1931 was largely devoted 

 to the "algal coals" (see Jeffrey 1910, 

 Thiessen 1925, and Schopf, Wilson, and 

 Bentall, p. 53, 1944) and the development 

 of the thin-section method by Thiessen at 

 the United States Bureau of Mines. 



Numerous papers concerned with spores 

 from Paleozoic coal deposits appearing 

 between 1931 and the present have been of 

 considerable aid in the present investigation. 

 The authors and dates of publication are 

 as follows: McCabe (1931), Potonie 

 (1931), Loose (1932, 1934), Hartung 

 (1933), Raistrick and Simpson (1933), 

 Ibrahim (1933), Raistrick (1934-1935, 

 1937-1939), Wicher (1934a, 1934b), 

 Florin (1936-1940, 1944), Paget (1936), 

 Schopf (1936, 1938), Berry (1937), Knox 

 (1938-1939, 1942), Millott (1939), Wil- 

 son and Coe (1940), Schopf, Wilson and 

 Bentall (1944), Wilson and Kosanke 

 (1944a), and Wilson (1944b). In addi- 

 tion to these papers, Olof H. Selling's 

 paper (1946) has been helpful in under- 

 standing the spore types of certain modern 

 pteridophytes. 



PREPARATION OF COAL FOR 

 MICROSCOPIC EXAMINATION 



Coal is formed from plant remains which 

 are progressively coalifled and altered from 

 their original state by increasing pressure, 

 temperature, and the passage of time, re- 

 sulting in the formation of coals of different 



