402 
THE LAST DECADE. 
be incapable of surmounting so great an obstacle as would be pre- 
sented by these hills. The theor)^ of floating ice is also considered 
untenable, and he is driven to the conclusion that a great ice sheet 
extended over the district, pushed southwards under an enormous 
pressure from behind. 
Messrs. W. Cash and T. Hick contributed a notice of the flora of the 
lower coal measures of the Parish of Halifax. It was only during the 
ten previous years that a considerable impetus had been given to the 
study of fossil plants which flourished in the carboniferous age by 
the discovery of their remains, preserved with great fidelity in cal- 
careous nodules, (locally termed coal-ballsj, found above the hard bed 
coal at Halifax, in Yorkshire, and at Oldham, in Lancashire. The 
organization of these fossils is preserved even to the most minute 
microscopical detail. The researches of Professor Williamson and 
others have thrown considerable light on the structure and aflinities 
of the plants which flourished during the coal period. The observa- 
tions of the authors were confined to the plants from the Halifax 
district, and the stratigraphical position and chemical composition of 
the coal-balls were explained. The fossils are roughly placed in four 
groups, namely, stems, organs of fructification, undetermined forms, 
and fungi. Of the first, eight are referred to, together with five 
species of Rachiopteris, a genus of ferns. The organs of fructification 
comprise the macrospores and microspores of lepidostrobi, cardio- 
carpon, the sporangia of ferns, and detached spore-like bodies which 
have not been determined. Amongst the undetermined organisms, 
the stomata, existing on fragments of epidermis, are perhaps the 
most remarkable, and of fungus one example of a mycelium has 
been found by Mr. Binns. 
A paper on the triassic boulder, pebble, and clay beds at Sutton 
Coldfield, was contributed by Mr. J. E. Clarke ; and the Rev. J. 
Stanley Tute described a species of Orthoceras which he had 
found in a bed of black shale immediately underlying the Cayton 
Gill beds near Ripon. 
Amongst the contributors to the proceedings who have followed 
a well-defined line of research must be mentioned Mr. George W. 
Lamplugh, whose work on the Glacial Geology of the East Coast, 
