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A CONTRIBUTION TO THE FLORA OF THE LOWER COAL MEA- 
SURES OF THE PARISH OF HALIFAX, PT. III. BY THOS. 
HICK, B.A., B.SC, (LOND.) AND W. CASH, F.G.S. 
THE active explorations which for several years have been going 
on in the Halifax Coal Measures, and which have produced no 
small proportion of the materials on which our present knowledge 
of the Carboniferous Flora is based, have lately resulted in the 
discovery of a small fragment of what appears to be a fossilised 
vegetable stem or branchlec, which has not been previously des- 
cribed, and which, from the peculiarities of its organisation, cannot 
fail to be of interest to palseobotanists. 
The mineralised material from which the fossil has been ob- 
tained, was extremely small in quantity, and only allowed of four 
sections suitable for microscopical examination being made from it. 
Of these sections, three have been taken transversely across the 
supposed stem, while the fourth is longitudinal, but very oblique. 
The three transverse sections, however, have been made so close 
to one another, that they exhibit few or no important differences 
inter se, and may practically be regarded as the same section. 
From this it will be obvious how scanty are the materials we have 
had at our command in framing a description of this new, and, as 
we think, important fossil j and how extremely limited have been 
our means of verifying the few inferences we have ventured to draw 
from the structural appearances it presents. Still, as the same 
remark is applicable to a considerable number of the fossil plants 
that have been described in recent years, we can hardly hesitate 
on this ground, to give publicity to the existence of our specimen, 
and to furnish those interested in the subject with such an account 
of its structure and supposed affinities, as a careful examination of 
the sections has enabled us to draw up. 
1. General description. — Though somewhat flattened on one 
side and imperfect on the other, the stem is sufficiently well pre- 
served to indicate that it was originally cylindrical in its general form, 
but there is nothing to show what was the condition of the external 
