8 
Most of the specimens exhibited are of peroxide of iron, 
but Mr. Swain son’s black coloured plants from Cark have 
been converted into protoxide of iron. 
It is of course impossible for me to know what specimens 
Mr. Kendall may have submitted to Professor Williamson 
when that gentleman is said to have pronounced my speci- 
mens not to be plants at all, but I now bring before the 
society Mr. Swainson’s and my own to speak for themselves. 
The former show the rhomboidal scars on the outside as 
well as the pith, and the internal and external radiating 
C 3 dinders of Bigillaria vascularis from Lindal Moor. There 
are also several specimens of Stigmccria ficoides, the well- 
known roots of Sigillaria, exhibiting the rootlets of the 
plant coming from the main root in regular quincuncial 
arrangement from Cark, which Mr. Swainson has kindly 
intrusted me with. My own specimens from Water Blain 
I own are not in such good preservation as those of Mr. 
Swainson, but most collectors of fossil coal plants would 
recognise them as Lepidodendron, Stigmaria, and Catamites, 
and their occurrence in any strata would be taken to prove 
the beds to be of carboniferous age, notwithstanding that 
Mr. Kendall does not believe them to be plants of any kind> 
but simply what is known as “ ring ore.” 
As to the origin of haematite iron, nothing that has come 
under my observation has altered the opinion I expressed 
in my paper printed in vol. XII. (2nd series) of the Society’s 
Memoirs, that the iron was primarily derived from volcanic 
sources, similar to that observed on the sides of Vesuvius 
in 1817, as a chloride ; but how it was conveyed into the 
places where it is now found it is difficult to say in the 
present state of our knowledge. However, it is most 
l)robable that the ores of Furness came into the places 
where they are most found about the time the lower coal 
measures of Lancashire were deposited. 
