429 
if, instead of having been thus closely enveloped by argillaceous 
matter, it had been surrounded by a loose arenaceous mass, and 
under circumstances less favourable to bituminization, the harder 
part only of the squamae, and the central receptaculum, would have 
obtained a prolonged duration of their original form; whilst the 
connecting membranous substances would have wasted away, and, 
as they disappeared, the space they possessed would have become 
filled up by earthy particles. Thus at a future distant period there 
would be produced a stony substance with an imbricated surface, 
containing within it another substance with a surface imbricated in 
almost a similar manner. In a word, a fossil would be formed, 
which, in its general characters, would resemble the fossil which has 
so particularly engaged our attention. It must, indeed, be admitted, 
that the fossil vegetable figured at PI. IX. Fig. 1, the extended out- 
line to which marks the shape of the complete strobilus, as shown 
bv the aid of another specimen, does not accord, in its size, with the 
fossil with which it has been attempted to demonstrate that it bears 
some analogy. The difierence in size, however, afibrds no material 
difficulty; and the difference in the markings on the surface, points 
out only perhaps a specific difference between these supposed stro- 
buli ; but two other circumstances demand still further examination. 
One of these is, that the markings, as is frequently the case, and as 
is the case with the fossil at PI. III. Fig. 1, is formed of detached 
spots or impressions, without any line pointing out the figures of the 
squa 7 ncB ; but this appears to depend on circumstances being favour- 
able, or otherwise, to the forming of the impression; since, in a 
fossil of this kind, nearly half a yard in length, and about two 
inches and a half in its largest diameter, the lines formed by the 
edges of the squamas are distinctly observable ; so that nothing 
remains to contradict its origin having been that which is here sup- 
posed, except its extraordinary length and narrowness, when com- 
pared with the cones of the genus Pinus. This is the other circum- 
