426 
shows that Mr. Da Costa was mistaken ; the specimens, of which he 
speaks, had, instead of the smooth, or the striated surface of gramina, 
studs, or tubercles, over the greatest part of its surface*. But Dr. 
Woodward mentions another specimen, apparently of the reed tribe, 
which was originally two feet long. 
The same circumstance is observable in these fossils, as has been 
mentioned when speaking of the vegetable remains in the iron 
nodules. Very frequently, indeed, will the bituminizating process 
have proceeded to the formation of the black bitumen, or jet, and 
cannel-coal ; such has been the case in the specimen already referred 
to, Plate III. Fig. 3, several particles of black bituminous matter 
being yet adherent, at the transverse sulcus or joint. 
The specimens of Dr. Woodward, referred by Mr. Da Costa to 
the reed tribe, are undoubtedly similar fossils to that described 
Plate III. Fig. 1, and which is indeed, in many respects, a most 
surprising and interesting fossil. These fossils differ much in their 
length from the size of that which is here depicted, to those men- 
tioned by Dr. Woodward : one of which was five feet, and the other 
six feet and a half longf . They also differ very much in their thick- 
ness, the most common size being less than that of a man’s arm ; 
but Mr. Martin observes, that they are sometimes met with of four 
or five times that size. The substance of these fossils is either a fine 
grit-stone, with small micaceous particles, or a stone in which no grit 
appears ; but such a mixture of argillaceous and silicious earth as 
approaches to a jasper ; the colour of both these kinds of stones 
varying with different shades, from the lightest to almost the darkest 
brown. The general figure of this fossil is that of a long, irregular, 
and compressed cylinder; the surface of which is pretty thickly 
beset, in quincunx order, with holes, from the bottom of which rise 
* Catalogue of English Fossils, Part II. p. 104, q. 1. 
f Ibid. Part I. p. 104, q. 1, and Part II. p. 59, h. 34. 
