THE ERIAN OR DEVONIAN FORESTS. 



53 



England, published a description of the Tasmanite and 

 Australian white coal, in which he shows that the or- 

 ganisms in these deposits are similar to my Sporangites 

 Huronensis, and to the macrospores previously described 

 by Prof. Huxley, from the Better-bed coal. Mr. Newton 

 does not seem to haye been aware of my previous descrip- 

 tion of Sporangites, and proposes the name Tasmanites 

 punctatus for the Australian form. 



Here we have the remarkable fact that the waste 

 macrospores, or larger spores of a species of Cryptoga- 

 mous plant, occur dispersed in countless millions of tons 

 through the shales of the Erian in Canada and the United 

 States. 



No certain clue seemed to be afforded by all these 

 observations as to the precise affinities of these widely 

 distributed bodies ; but this was furnished shortly after 

 from an unexpected quarter. In March, 1883, Mr. Or- 

 ville Derby, of the Geological Survey of Brazil, sent me 

 specimens found in the Erian of that country, which 

 seemed to throw a new light on the whole subject. These 

 I described and pointed out their connection with Sporan- 

 gites at the meeting of the American Association at Min- 

 neapolis, in 1883, and subsequently published my notes 

 respecting them in its proceedings, and in the "Canadian 

 Record of Science." 



Mr. Derby's specimens contained the curious spiral 

 sea-weed known as Spirophyton, and also minute rounded 

 Sporangites like those obtained in the Erian of Ohio, and 

 of which specimens had been sent to me some years be- 

 fore by the late Prof. Hartt. But they differed in show- 

 ing the remarkable fact that these rounded bodies are 

 enclosed in considerable numbers in spherical and oval 

 sacs, the walls of which are composed of a tissue of 

 hexagonal cells, and which resemble in every respect the 

 involucres or spore-sacs of the little group of modern 

 aorogens known as Rhizocarps, and living in shallow 



