6 14 Edwards. — Fossil Coniferous Wood from Kerguelen Island. 
Dadoxylon kerguelense , Seward. 
Seward’s description ( 1919 , p. 185) is as follows : ‘ Annual rings narrow, 
often 1 5-20 tracheides broad, the summer wood being frequently represented 
by only two rows of elements. There are one or two rows of bordered pits 
on the radial walls of the tracheides, contiguous, alternate, and often slightly 
flattened.’ This description is based on three old and very thick slides 
(V. 8388-V. 8390) which have ‘ Kerguellan, Ross ’ scratched on the glass, 
and the figures were made from the radial section (V. 8389). These sections 
were cut from a block of compact, black, silicified wood (V. 58 67) bearing 
an old label £ Kerguellan, Sir J. Ross ’. Three more sections (V. 5867 a, b, 
and c) have recently been cut from this piece which show the structural 
details much more clearly. 
The growth rings are very distinct to the naked eye in transverse 
section, and are much closer together than in the Cupressinoxylon above 
described. There are about 18 rings per centimetre, and their curvature 
indicates a trunk of considerable girth. The diameter of the block in 
a radial direction is about 10 cm., so there are about 180 rings in this 
fragment alone, which consists entirely of secondary wood. The rings have 
a somewhat root-like character. 
The preservation is good, and there has been no crushing of the 
tissues. The tangential walls of the tracheides are unpitted. The medullary 
rays are uniseriate, 1-11 cells high, and there may be as many as nine 
oblique pits in the field. The most striking feature, however, is the 
distribution of the resin in the tracheides, which closely resembles that 
described by Dr. Stopes ( 1914 ) in D. novae- Zeelandiae, and by R. B. 
Thomson ( 1914 ) in various recent and fossil araucarians. Plates or spools 
of resin may be seen in both radial and tangential sections in the 
tracheides adjacent to the rays, and in some cases these tracheides 
appear to have thickened walls. The transverse section has a striking 
appearance : in parts of the wood the resin seems to be absent, and while in 
some patches the resin is confined to the tracheides next to the rays, in 
other regions practically every tracheide is filled with a dark brown, 
presumably resinous substance (see PL XXIII, Figs. 4 and 5). In the longi- 
tudinal sections isolated tracheides are to be seen entirely filled with resin, 
which is found also in the medullary ray cells. 
The spools in the tracheides are sometimes so reduced as to give the* 
appearance of septa (Text-fig. 4), and in fact it is very difficult to say 
whether or not actual septa or trabeculae were present. In one or two 
cases these apparent septa are arranged to some extent in radial rows, and 
it seems possible that the septa described by Gothan ( 1908 , p. 10) in 
Dadoxylon pseudoparenchymatosum from Seymour Island (lat. 64° S.) were 
reduced resin plates, for they occur in the same position, in connexion with 
