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mediseval cathedrals under contribution ; and to a miserable 
depreciation of our own contemporary forms, even when, 
as in the case of our printed characters, they are really of 
surpassing clearness and excellence. 
“ A Few Observations on Coal,” by E. W. Binney, V.R, 
F.R S., F.G.S. 
Of late years much has been written on the structure of 
coal and the various vegetable remains of which it is com- 
posed. Observers examining different coals under the 
microscope have, as might be expected, come to different 
conclusions. Some of them have found little else than the 
remains of spores and spore cases, others only scalariform and 
cellular tissues and a few spores, and a third class little trace 
of any structure whatever in the specimens they examined. 
Splint or hard coal would generally afford the results first 
named, soft caking or cherry coals the second, and cannel 
coals the third. 
Soft coals yielding a large amount of charcoal enclosed in 
bright coal nearly always show plenty of structure in the 
“ mother coal,” as well as a few macrospores in the bright 
portions. Macrospores are nearly always found in abun- 
dance in splint and hard coals. In cannel coals they are 
sometimes found as well as the cellular and scalariform por 
tions of plants. 
For many years macrospores were known by the names 
of spore cases and spores. They could be easily observed 
by the naked eye in the black parts of the coal, and they 
were generally considered as sporangia, but Professor 
Adolphe Brongniart in 1868 described a cone (Lejyidostrobus 
Dahaclianus) having sporangia full of very minute spores, 
in fact microspores, in the upper portion, and sporangia full 
of macrospores, which had been so long known, in the lower 
part. These observations of Brongniart have been amply 
confirmed by specimens from the British coal fields. 
