laborer in the
geologic field,--were exhibited at Glasgow to the Association. The
larger stems were thickly traversed in Mr. J. Miller's specimens by
diagonal lines, which seemed, however, to be merely lines of rhomboidal
fracture in the glassy coal into which the plants were converted, and
not one of their original characters.

[47] I must, however, add, that there was found in the neighborhood of
Stromness about fifteen years ago, by Dr. John Fleming, a curious
nondescript vegetable organism, which, though equivocal in character and
appearance, was in all probability a plant of the sea. It consisted of a
flattened cylinder, in some of the specimens exceeding a foot in length
by an inch in breadth, and traversed on both the upper and under sides
by a mesial groove extending to the extremities. It bore no external
markings, and the section exhibited but an indistinct fibrous structure,
sufficient, however, to indicate its vegetable origin. I have not
hitherto succeeded in finding for myself specimens of this organism,
which has been named provisionally, by Dr. Fleming, _Stroma obscura_;
but it seems not improbable that certain supposed fragments of wood,
detected by Mr. Charles Peach in the Caithness Flagstones, but which do
not exhibit the woody structure, may have belonged to it.

[48] I figured this species from an imperfect Cromarty specimen fifteen
years ago. (See "Old Red Sandstone," first edition, 1841, Plate VII.
Fig. 4). Of the greatly better specimens now figured I owe the larger
one (Fig. 120) to Mrs. Mill, Thurso, who detected it in the richly
fossiliferous flagstones of the locality in which she resides, and
kindly made it over to me; and the specimen of which I have given a
magnificent representation (Fig. 12, p. 55) to my friend Mr. Robert
Dick. I have, besides, seen several specimens of the same organism, in a
better or worse state of keeping, in the interesting collection of the
Rev. Charles Clouston, Sandwick, near Stromness.

[49] "Frogspawn is full of eyes [that is, black eye-like points], and
every eye is a tadpole."

[50] Mr. Page figures, in his "Advanced Text Book of Geology" (p. 127),
a few circular markings from the Forfarshire beds, which he still
regards as spawn, probably that of a Crustacean, and which certainly
differ greatly in appearance from the markings found enclosed in the
apparent spathes.

[51] Since these sentences were written I have seen a description of
both the plants of