g66 
Scientific Intelligence. [no. new series^ 
Report on specimens of Bituininous Shale transmitted aloiig tvith 
Dr. Walker's Report, hy Dr. Falconer^ a. m. and m. d., 
Supt. Honhle Co.''s Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. 
I have carefully examined the specimens in question six in num- 
ber, and although they exhibit abundance of black flakes as com- 
monly occurs in bituminous shale, \^•hich are probably of vegeta- 
ble origin, I cannnot detect the presence of any determinable im- 
pressions of vegetable fossils. The black flakes, under a careful 
examination with the microscope, exhibit no marks of structure 
and appear to be bituminous. 
The appearances which seem to have been taken for vegetable 
fossils and which I presume are those alluded to by Dr. Walker in 
his Report as " Scales of Lepidodendrous Plants," I have made 
out to be enamel dersinal plates of an extinct placoid fish co-ordi- 
nate with Lepidotus and Dapedius. If Dr. Walker forwarded any 
well marked vegetable fossils they have not been submitted to me^ 
there are one or two obscure and indistinct impressions probably 
of organic origin but they are not determinable. 
In the list appended to his Report, Dr. Walker mentions No. 
VI. specimens of coal with fossil impressions chiefly of Lepido- 
dendrous plants to show that the measure is a true " coal," I have 
observed nothing among those sent, to which this description could 
accurately apply, nor have seen any samples of coal among them. 
Should there happen to be any, I should be glad to examine it, on 
the chance, that some portion of it may exhibit determinable struc- 
ture. In reference to this point I may mention that I have detected 
structure on the Burdwan coal, sufficient to determine the plans 
from which the coal was produced, and which go a long way to 
prove that the Burdwan coal fields belong to an age and series, 
perfectly distinct from and more modern than the great English 
coal measures. 
There is no evidence aff'orded by such of Dr. Walker's specimens 
as I have seen that the Chennore coal belongs to the same forma- 
tion, as the English Carboniferous series. 
