Feb., 1889. 
STIGMARIA. 
29 
localities they appear to occupy positions in all layers of the 
seam as well as to extend to the roof. 
In some places these things are so numerous as to make 
the coal unworkable. 
The name of the coal-seam is the “Little Flint,” and 
below is a section showing its thickness, &c. 
FT. INS. 
Sandstone giving place to Shale towards 
north and east. ----- varies. 
Little Flint coal-seam with many Stigmaria, 
about ------- 29 
Hard grey Sandstone, without fossils, about 4 0 
O J 7 7 
Coal, called “Lancashire Ladies” - - a few ins. 
Blue Shale ------ varies. 
That the Stigmarias in this (Little Flint) coal-seam are 
remarkable would seem clear from the fact that, so long since 
as 1833, Prof. Prestwich called attention to them in his 
memoir on the Coalbrookdale Coalfield (see “ Trans. Geol. 
Soc.,” second series, Yol. V., page 441). It would appear that 
he then regarded these fossils as plants distinct from trees, as 
he used the term “ stems ” when describing them. 
From what I could learn in the district, such a thing as 
any approach to fossils showing the connection of Stigmaria 
with a tree stump, has never yet been met with in this coal, 
notwithstanding hundreds of fossils are turned over with and 
separated from it every day. Surely this fact is of great 
importance ! 
In the Leicestershire coal-field is a seam called the 
“ Eureka ” coal, which, by the way, occupies very nearly, if 
not, the same horizon in the measures as the Little Flint does 
in those of Coalbrookdale, Now, in this coal-bed are found 
Stigmaria fossils in almost the same wav as at Coalbrookdale 
(Plate II., fig. 3), being identical in shapes and in bulk, but not 
often met with excepting close to the top of the coal. They are 
invariably, I am informed, completely imbedded in the seam, 
and have not been observed turning upwards into the roof and 
assuming the form of the stool of a tree—forms commonly 
known in the mines as “pot-bottoms” or “pot-holes.” All 
these Leicestershire (Eureka coal) specimens, like their neigh¬ 
bours in Salop, are sandstone casts, and exhibit next to nothing 
in the way of internal structure. 
I have also come upon similar short lengths of Stigmaria 
with rounded terminals, some of which resemble, in some 
degree, those of the South Kensington Coalbrookdale 
individual, m the Derbyshire coal-field at Glapwell Colliery, 
where, as the manager and the men tell me, they alwavs “run 
