26 
STIGMARIA. 
Feb., 1889. 
known the following facts, which have recently presented 
themselves to the writer. Since the appearance of my com¬ 
munication to the Geological Society of London last June, 
entitled “ Notes on the Formation of Coal-Seams, as suggested 
by evidence collected chiefly in the Leicestershire and South 
Derbyshire Coalfields,” my particular attention has again and 
again been drawn to the important fact of the underclays of 
coal-seams whose only fossil contents are those of Stigmaria ; 
clays, often of great thickness, with this fossil occurring at 
all horizons in them, hut with no remains of Sigillaria Lepi- 
dodendron, &c. (the aerial portions of trees) ; also, the fact 
of like beds of Stigmaria clay being unassociated with a 
layer of coal or of coally material. Such fossils seem to 
show clearly, or at any rate are highly suggestive of these 
beds not representing old soils at all, and that they (the 
Stigmariae in them) were seldom the roots of trees. If they 
were, how happens it that we very rarely indeed come across 
any connections between roots and stumps, as is much more 
frequently the case in other strata, viz., the arenaceous roofs 
of coal-seams, in sandstones, &c.? 
My former paper also contained what practically amounted 
to a challenge to those who assert that coal-beds are the fossil 
remains of forests, which grew (in their earlier stages at all 
events) with their tree-roots in the underclays, to produce 
evidence that the Stigmariae in the underclays were originally 
connected with the coal as tree-roots. Now, it seems to me 
that the fact of only two anything approaching bond fide 
examples of this phenomenon having been communicated to 
me since I wrote* as having been observed, but which, when I 
came to enquire closely into, turned out to be fossil tree 
stumps, which might or might not have had the roots attached 
in situ, as they were never actually seen but only supposed to 
be there, supplies me with additional good cause for so soon 
again bringing this subject to the fore. 
(c) It may be well if I relate the order in which my 
discoveries have been made, namely, how I have been led up 
to writing these remarks. In my former paper I gave it as 
my opinion that fossils resembling Stigmaria (organisms with 
rootlets attached in situ) were occasionallv found bavins all 
the appearance of being individual plants sui generis. High 
authorities, however, rejected my idea. I examined the 
* My paper had a wide circulation amongst coal-mining men, being 
published in two mining journals at home, in two in America, and in 
other ways ; so that there has been plenty of time for anyone to make 
known their discoveries if any have been made. 
