SALTER A CHRISTMAS LECTURE ON COAL 



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true structure of the Lepidodenclron and its seed ; and has illustrated 

 the fruit of these old fir-trees), suggested years ago, in the gallery 

 of the Museum of Practical Geology, that the one supposed floiver of 

 the coal belonged to the fir tribe too. 



It is called Antholites, and may, as he admits, certainly be what it 

 was at first described to be — the flower spike of a plant not distantly 

 related to the pine apple ! There are some prickly leaves (if they be 

 . not fern-stalks) in the coal-shales, which render this possible, — not, 

 I think, probable. 



But on the other hand these 

 so-called flowers have no very 

 regular parts, and are not a bit 

 like any hving ones that I 

 know. They look to me, as 

 they did to Dr. Hooker when 

 he first examined them, very 

 like unfolding buds of Coni- 



ferae, with somewhat broader 

 leaves than we are accustomed 

 to see in modern firs or larch, 

 but not broader than many of 

 the yew tribe. As I do not 

 know that the author I have 

 named still holds the original 

 opinion, I do not quote him 

 for it ; but only give my own. 



Of the Cycas tribe, so abun- 

 dant in oolitic times, a few re- 

 presentatives occur. They are 

 not characteristic of the coal, 

 and are rare in England. We give a foreign specimen. 



And now a few grass-like plants, of whose nature we cannot say 

 much, for want of the fructification, would end the series, had it not 

 been known that they axe fungi in the coal! I know but little about 

 them, and will therefore say less ; but there they are — three species. 



Of the animals of the coal I shall have a little to say next month, 

 when I hope to finish this rather lengthy lecture. I am not tired of 

 it myself, but our young readers may be. 



Cycadeous Plant (Pterophyllum) , from the car- 

 boniferous beds of the Altai Mountains. 



