50 The American Geologist. July, i900 
Fig. 2. Transverse section, magnified, of the tubular structures or 
elements sketched in figure i; also showing the character of the cellu- 
lar tube filling, that of the intertubular material, and of the more dense 
and blacker edge of the fossil— the lower portion of the figure, which 
is observed to be rent or ruptured near the right-hand corner. 
Fig. 3. Longitudinal section through a. b. of figure i, revealing 
the character of the various elementary structures of which the speci- 
men is composed, c being a tube and e. p. ? the epidermis, Within 
the tubes, black rod-like bodies may sometimes be seen (see figures 2 
and 3). These, when present are either well within the tube's core or 
are near to the tube-wall. 
Fig. 4. Transverse section of a portion of the cells enclosed in the 
tubes. They are gray in color. 
Fig. 5. Longitudinal section of a portion of the cellular tissue of 
the intertubular material; also gray in various shades. 
Fig. 6. Longitudinal section of a portion of the very thick-walled 
fibrous material constituting the tubes, and apparently the ? epidermal 
layer as well. The cores or centres are of a gray substance. 
Fig. 7. Rather oblique section of part of a layer or mass of this 
species, exhibiting the ? epidermis in a shape suggestive of a deeply 
grooved stem or ? bifurcation of the plant. 
Fig. 8. Oblique section of a part of a mass of ruptured and disturbed 
tubes — a feature not uncommon with this form in the coal. 
Notes on the foregoi7ig: This fossil plant occurs in hori- 
zontal layers or plates of unknown shape and area ; the largest 
individual specimen, and that merely a fragment, showed about 
twenty square inches in area. In thickness or vertical hight in 
the coal, it runs from two or three tubes to at least thirty. The 
individual layers of it sometimes occur closely stratified, one 
above another; fig. i shows two layers. In vertical diameter 
the tubes seem to average about 1-150 of an inch, and say 1-75 
of an inch horizontally. The lengths of the tubes have not 
been determined, but some of them measure at least one inch. 
The thickness of the core of a tube is about one-fourth of the 
tube's diameter. All the elements seem to lie parallel to each 
other, and notwithstanding this fossil is quite common in an- 
thracite yet no suggestion of any cross-grain or of medullary 
rays has been detected. Some specimens show the tubes twice 
as large as do others, and there appears to be a gradation 
in size as one would naturally expect to find. These tubes, 
etc.. appear in the coal much as do corals in polished black 
marble, but to the naked eye they are rarely visible. It is in the 
