1884.] Age of the Tertiary Basalts of the Atlantic. 15 



as these notes on the fossil plants must necessarily be at the present 

 stage, they will, I trust, serve to disclose how enormously increased 

 our knowledge must become when the study of these plants shall 

 have been completed. An interpretation of them, very different to 

 that current prior to the investigations undertaken by means of the 

 grant, is now possible, affecting questions far beyond the immediate 

 issues. That this preliminary notice may be confined to the briefest 

 treatment that the subject admits, I have refrained from encumbering 

 it with purely geological matter, and as far as possible I have avoided 

 theoretical considerations. The former I have embodied in two 

 papers to be laid before the Geological Society, and the latter I have 

 already discussed in a lecture to the Belfast Field Naturalists' Club, I 

 am happy to think with the result that many of the subjects pointed 

 out as requiring further investigation have already received attention 

 that bids fair to set some of the most unsettled questions at rest. 



Bally 'palady. 



The collection I have made consists of several hundred specimens, 

 procured mainly from the piles of ore waiting shipment on the quays 

 at Belfast, as well as in situ in the quarries. Mr. Stuart, F.L.S., has 

 since collected for the Belfast Museum, and has allowed me to make 

 the fullest use of the specimens, but I have not yet thoroughly 

 examined the collections in Dublin previously made by Mr. Baily. 

 The present collection could be largely and easily supplemented. The 

 plants occur in a ferruginous and indurated sandy clay, and the 

 matrix is not very favourable for the preservation of the fine vena- 

 tion of leaves. 



Ferns. — These are very rare. A macerated pinna indicates a 

 Bteris, with undulating mid-rib and crenate margin, belonging pro- 

 bably to an Arctic fossil species. Other fragments agree with Benitzia 

 minima, Saporta and Marion, from the Heersien stage of Gelinden. 



Conifers. — These are relatively very numerous, and six plates and 

 a half have already been published of them by the Palaaontographical 

 Society. The Cupressinece are represented by a very abundant form, 

 indistinguishable from the existing Gwpressus torulosa of the Hima- 

 layas, and probably identical with the Chamcecyparis belgica of Saporta 

 and Marion. The somewhat starved Oryptomeria, formerly Sequoia 

 T)u Noyeri, is the only member of the Taxodiece, and seems identical 

 with the Sequoia subulata of the Arctic so-called Upper Cretaceous. 

 Some twigs look like Taxus. There are two Pines, both characteristic 

 of the warmest regions in which Pines now exist ; there are some 

 leathery cones referable to Tsuga, and a seed very possibly of Abies. 

 All except the latter and Taxus are very abundant. Mr. Baily includes 

 Taxodiam in his list, but I do not know upon what grounds, and the 



