130 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
Dr. Williamson found that this pith ^r r; i -ibc lclcd in a wood which 
was in all respects a true fir-tree, and which bis been known under the 
name of Badoxylon. It is not certain that all the firs belonged to this 
one genus ; most probably they did not. At all events Dadoxylon is 
a very common coal-fossil. 
Here then we have the wood and the pith ; and leL me say that 
any one who is disposed to examine the contents of his own coal 
scuttle may do so with advantage, for the charcoal he will find in it 
shows, under the microscope, a beautiful tissue like that described 
above. As an opaque object it is veiy .beautiful, and polished slices 
sometimes show it equally well. Prof. Queckett, of the College of 
Sm^o-eons, has distinguished himself for his researches into these 
tissues, and in the wonderful " Torbane Hill case," referred to in 
the opening of this lecture, his skill was largely called into 
requisition. 
But having got the wood, one naturally wishes to find the leaves 
and seeds. What were they ? 
Some years back a suspicion entered my mind that the leaves 
commonly called Cydopteris might belong to this family of trees. It 
is true they might be ferns, to which order they have been usually 
referred. But there are fir-trees, or at least Coniferae, which have 
broad leaves very much of the shape of these supposed ferns. Heart- 
shaped or fan-shaped leaves, with a shorter or longer stalk, and the 
veins so like that of the fern, that it is difficult to distinguish frag- 
ments. These are the Salishuria. They are trees well known in our 
parks and gardens, and there is a noble specimen at Kew. Let 
anyone compare a figure of the Cyclopteris of the coal with a 
leaf of the living Salishuria, and he will be struck with the 
strong resemblance. The possibility of this has of course occurred 
to those skilled botanists who have written on coal-plants ; but none 
of them have, I think, been rash enough to call the Cyclopteris the 
leaf of Dadoxylon, or to suggest, as I do now, that many of the leaves 
called Noggerathia, and even some called Adiantites are nothing more 
or less than leaves of the coniferous trees, which we know abounded 
in these old forests. 
It is other^dse \Ndth the fruit. Professor Henslow some time back 
showed me the 'fruit of Salishuria, and compared it with the Trigono- 
carpon from the Manchester coal-sandstone. And Dr. Hooker, by a 
series of original researches into these coal-nuts (published in the 
Royal Society's Transactions), has demonstrated that they are the 
fraits or nuts of coniferous trees, each with a large fleshy envelope 
like the fruit of the yew. Well then, if Dadoxylon is the common 
fir-wood of the coal, and Trigonocarjmm the common coal fruit, we 
need only put two and two together ; and if we cannot convince the 
cautious botanists, I hope I may convince my student readers there 
is a strong probability that the one is the fniit of the other. 
Coal pine-trees ; coal pine-leaves, and coal pine-fruit ! We are 
getting on. But this is not quite all. The same distinguished 
botanist to whom I have so often refeiTed (who has shown us the 
