192 



Scientific Geology. 



monocotyledonous plant, bearing the closest resemblance to a Zos- 

 tera. The mass resembled peat. 



But most of the vegetable impressions at this cliff are dicotyle- 

 donous ; and exist only in slaty argillaceous iron. Although these 

 impressions are very distinct, exhibiting the minutest reticulations of 

 the leaf, yet every particle of the vegetable substance is removed. 

 This is true only of those instances where the impressions are leaves. 

 (Plate XI. Figs. 1, 2, & 6.*) The shape of most of these leaves 

 very much resembles that of an Ulmus ; but they are wanting in the 

 serratures, which the existing species in this country possess. Fig. 

 6 has serratures, or rather is crenate, and resembles a Salix. On 

 Fig. 2, may be seen the impressions of pear-shaped seeds. 



Figs. 7, 8, and 9, represent different individuals of another variety 

 of vegetable remains, occurring at the same spot, and in the same 

 iron ore. These are not mere impressions ; but a scale of carbon- 

 aceous matter, mixed with amber, marks the spot where the vegeta- 

 ble was imprisoned. The amber occupies longitudinal ridges, which 

 in the plate are represented by white stripes. It seems to me very ob- 

 vious, that these remains must be the seed vessels of coniferous plants. 

 The amber shows that they abounded in resin. They resemble un- 

 opened flowers of syngenesian plants: but they contain too much 

 resin for these, and have left too much undecomposed matter for so 

 frail a substance. Indeed, although the compound flowers, with their 

 double calyx and strong receptacle, might stand a better chance of 

 being preserved in a fossil state than those of any other kind of plant, 

 yet I am not aware that a flower of any sort has been found in that 

 condition. Near one of the specimens of the vegetable under con- 

 sideration, I observed an ovoid carpolithes, about a quarter of an inch 

 long, exhibiting the shell most distinctly, and different from the pear- 

 shaped ones just mentioned. 



Animal Remains. 



Vertebral Animals. The bones and teeth of these animals are 

 more numerous at Gay Head than any other organic relics. They are 

 found in the greatest abundance in the osseous conglomerate, already 

 described : but they occur also in the green sand, and in a yellowish 

 sand, associated with the green sand. For the most part, the bones 

 are not mineralized ; but frequently they are black when broken ; and 



* All the organic remains that are figured are drawn of the natural size. 



