THE SCEN IIST. 
141 
and .a good helper wilh a team lo excavate, 
load and trar. sport the specimen to Toronto, 
a distance of about fifteen miles. 
This specimen is 32 inches in height and 
36 inches in diameter and weighs altnosc a 
ton. There are other specimens in the lo- 
cality that are much larger than this one. 
Unfortunately, these larger ones are much 
eroded or weathered. They do not show 
the leaf scars distinctly, and consequently^ 
are not so valuable as the one described 
above. The largest cast I remember meas- 
uring was 63 inches in diameter. The par- 
ticular layer of the above described sand- 
stone that contains the specimens is probably 
not more than twenty feet in thickness. At 
the croppingsof this layer, throughout the 
entire field, the specimens are plentiful but 
have the defects already noted. 
It would be interesting to excavate on the 
faces of these croppings to determine the 
condition of the specimens beneath the sur- 
face. If found in good condition, enough 
could be had to supply a'l the museums and 
collectors in the world. 
I have never seen a description of a lar- 
ger sigillariathan this field affords. 
Nova Scotia, England and Pennsylvania 
have produced some very large specimens 
but so far as I can ascertain, none of them 
equal in size these Kansas j^pecimens. 
The above specimen that was procured by 
Messrs Tidswell,IIare and myself was sold to 
Prof, F. H. Snow of the Kansas University, 
at Lawrence, and now may be seen at Snow 
Hall. 
This particular specimen has a peculiarity 
that may solve an important problem in pa- 
leontology. It was a stump. The crown is 
fairly well defined. Above the crown, the 
leaf stria are parallel to the axis of the 
trunk or stem of the plant. Below the crown 
the striae are arranged in spiral lines. The 
leaves probably grow a distance below the 
crown. I have seen specimens like this one 
is above the crown figured as sigillaria, 
others like this below the crown that were 
figured as stigmaria. Does not this speci- 
men prove that the so called stigmaria is 
nothing but the roots of the s'gillaria? 
There is another reason why these Kan- 
sas specimens are interesting. They afford 
us one and possibly more, new species. I 
sent a small specimen of this sigillaria to 
Prof. J. D. Dana of Yale College. It 
weighed about 309 pounds and was 17 inches 
in diameter. It did not show the spiral ar- 
rangement of striae, but was otherwise, as 
well as I can remember, like the one furn- 
ished Prof. Snow. At the end of some 
eighteen months, Prof. Dana Mrote me as 
follows: 
"You have suggested that the fine speci- 
men of sigillaiia which you were Isind enough 
to send me some months ago is S. — renifor- 
mus I have not been able to determine 
the species, but think you are incorrect. As 
soon as Dr. Newberry returns from Europe. 
I hope to refer the matter to him . It is an 
unusually interesting specimen, and I have it 
mounted in my lecture room." 
If the species has ever been determined 
by Dr. Newberry, Professors Dana, Snow, 
or any other, I have never been notified of it. 
There are two more phenomena in connec- 
ion with this field that are worthy of note. 
First the horizon is geologically high for coal 
flora. The remains of coal plants may be 
found on high horizon all over the upper 
carboniferuous and permo, carboniferious 
fields of southern Kansas. Near the head 
of Spring Creek in Greeewood County, at 
the foot of Flint Hills, may be found beau- 
tiful specimens of lepidodendron within 
seventy feet geologically, of the Permian 
rocks. Near this same horizon is a vein of 
coal that is thick enough in some neighbor- 
hoods to be workable. 
The sandstone in which the sigillaria are 
found yields, in other neighborhoods, cala- 
mites, equisitae and other coal measure 
fossils, but so far as I have observed no great 
specimens of sigillaria 
The second phenomenon is the fact that 
these gigantic coal plants grew so far above 
the true coal measures. 
The thin vein of coal mentioned above and 
another the one that lies about the same 
