318 
rOPIJLA.R SCIENCE REVIEW. 
the last hundred years. That, indeed, is the judgment he is said to have 
passed upon it. 
Eocene Fossil Wood. — This subject receives the attention of Professor 
T. Dyer, and, as is customary with Mr. Dyer’s labours, it has been gone into 
fully and exhaustively. He explains fully the nature of so-called tylose , 
a subject upon which we have not been very clear before. He says that 
many instances of tylose are now known amongst recent plants, and have 
been repeatedly made the subject of investigation by foreign writers. Mal- 
pighi, indeed, in hi’s “ Anatome Plantarum,” gives a very fair representation 
of them in the oak, remarking, “ fistuke frequenter pulmonares quasi vesicidas 
trachearum substantia excitatas continent.” Without going into the litera- 
ture of the subject, which is considerable, it is sufficient to state that the 
investigations of an anonymous writer in the u Botan. Zeit.” for 1845, con- 
firmed by Mohl and Beess (“ Bot. Zeit.” 1868), appear to leave little doubt 
that the t{ Thyllen,” as the first-mentioned writer named them, are hernioid 
protrusions into the vessel from adjacent cells. In the words of Beess, 
u each young thy lie makes its appearance as a bulging of a wood- parenchy- 
matous or medullary-ray cell forced through a pore in the vessels.” This 
process would be inconceivable in the case of the prosenchymatous cells ; 
but parenchymatous cells, which surround the ducts, and those which form 
the medullary rays, do not undergo the same amount of speedy induration. 
Sauropus Unyuifer, a new Carboniferous Batrachian , has been j ust described 
by Dr. J. W. Dawson, F.B.S., of Montreal. He states that the principal 
specimens are several large slabs of brownish sandstone, bearing series of 
footprints in relief. Of the largest and most distinct series 40 to 50 foot- 
prints have been preserved, and are arranged in two rows, about 5J inches 
apart. They were probably produced by a large Labyrinthodont Batrachian 
walking on a muddy shore, near the edge of the water, and are not very 
dissimilar from those described by Sir C. Lyell as found by Dr. King in the 
carboniferous beds of Pennsylvania. They also closely resemble, in size and 
form, the footprints found by Mr. B. Brown, F.G.S., in the coal-field of 
Sydney, Gape Breton, and described by Dr. Dawson in the second edition of 
“ Acadian Geology,” p. 358, under the name of Sauropus Sydnensis, and still 
more closely those found by Mr. Jones, F.L.S., at Parrsborough, N.S., 
and noticed in the same work. With these they may, in the meantime, be 
included in the provisional genus Sauropus. 
The dimensions of the footprints are as follows : — 
Hind foot, breadth 
2-71 inches. 
„ „ length 
4-24 
V 
Fore foot, breadth 
2 63 
V 
„ „ length 
2-77 
Length of stride 
11-53 
» 
Average distance between the rows of footprints 
made by right and left feet . 
5-48 
These measurements correspond very nearly with those of his Sauropus 
Sydnensis above referred to. He has given it the name of S. unyuifer. 
Fossil Plants from Queensland. — In the course of the discussion at a recent 
meeting of the Geological Society, upon a paper by Mr. B. Daintree, Mr. 
