cent to the narrow leaves of gramineous [looking]
vegetables, and chiefly in clay slate, originally lacustrine silt, it is
probable that they constituted the conglobate panicles of extinct
species of the genus Junicus or Sparzanium." From specimens subsequently
found by Dr. Fleming, and on which he has erected his species _Parka
decipiens_, it seems evident that the nearly circular bodies (which in
all the better preserved instances circumscribe the small polygonal
ones) were set in receptacles somewhat resembling the receptacle or
calyx of the strawberry or rasp. Judging from one of the specimens, this
calyx appears to have consisted of five pieces, which united in a
central stem, and were traversed by broad irregularly diverging striae.
And the spawn-like patches of Carmylie appear to be simply ill preserved
specimens of this fruit, whatever its true character, in which the
minute circular portions, divested of the receptacle and stem, had been
thrown into irregular forms by the joint agency of pressure and decay.
The great abundance of these organisms,--for so abundant are they, that
visitors to the Carmylie quarries find they can carry away with them as
many specimens as they please,--may be regarded as of itself indicative
of a vegetable origin.[50] It is not in the least strange, however, that
they should have been taken for patches of spawn. The large-grained
spawn of fishes, such as the lump-fish, salmon, or sturgeon, might be
readily enough mistaken, in even the recent state, for the detached
spherical-seed vessels of fruit, such as the bramble-berry, the
stone-bramble, or the rasp. "Hang it!" I once heard a countryman
exclaim, on helping himself at table to a spoonful of Caviare, which he
had mistaken for a sweet-meat, and instantly, according to Milton, "with
sputtering noise rejected,"--"Hang it for nasty stuff!--I took it for
bramble berry jam."

[Illustration: Fig. 121.

PARKA DECIPIENS.]

[Illustration: Fig. 122.]

[Illustration: Fig. 123.]

Along with these curious remains Dr. Fleming found an organism which in
form somewhat resembles the spike of one of the grasses, save that the
better preserved bracts terminate in fan or kidney-shaped leaflets, with
a simple venation radiating from the base. It is probably a fern, more
minute in its pinnules than even our smallest specimens of true
maidenhair. Its stipes, however, seems proportionally stouter than that
of any of the smaller ferns with which I am