another terminated in hooks. One example showed the remainsof ligneous fibres; and this only was regarded by Miller as of terrestrial origin. In Fife, he says, the vegetable remains are "dark impressions of stems. . . . . . confusedly mixed with what seem slender and pointed leaflets"[1]. In the Carmylie-Parish Quarries, "irregularly grooved stems branching out into boughs at acute angles were also noticed."
In 1853 Dr. J. D. Hooker published a "Note on the Fossil Plants from the Shetlands, collected by the Right Hon. Henry Tufnell," which are provisionally referred to two species of Calamites[2].
In 1855 Mr. C. W. Peach presented two short notes to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall (namely "A Notice of the discovery of Land Plants and shells in the Lower Old Red Sandstone of Caithness," and "A Note on the Fossil Flora of the Lower Old Red Sandstone of Wick, Caithness")[3], in which he respectively notices the occurrence of wood at several localities near Thurso and Dunnet Head, and records the discovery of land plants at Kilmster, near Wick.
The Rev. J. Duncan described and figured, in Jeffrey's 'History and Antiquities of Roxburghshire and adjacent Districts'[4], published in 1855, plant-remains from Denholm-Hill Quarry, consisting of dichotomizing stems, regarded by the author as fucoidal, another specimen with more or less alternate branches, which he supposed to be a land plant, and, lastly, an organism described as "the radical portion of what we cannot hesitate to call a species of Calamite."
In 1855 Hugh Miller read before the British Association a paper "On the less-known Fossil Floras of Scotland"[5], in which reference was made to the bituminous nature and dark colour of the Caithness Flagstones, the latter arising chiefly from the vegetable portion of the contained organic matter. He further notices the discovery of a Lepidodendron in the Caithness Flagstones at Clockbriggs Quarry, and a form resembling the maiden-hair spleenwort, in the Orkney Flags. At the same mecting, Mr. J. Miller, of Thurso, exhibited a collection of plants from the Caithness Flagstones similar to that described by Mr. H. Miller[6].
In 1857 the 'Testimony of the Rocks' appeared[7], with the author's figures of many of the previously mentioned plants. Three sectional figures of the Cromarty Conifer, examined by Prof. Nicol, are given, magnified 40 diameters[8], and two vignettes of the supposed fucoidal remains[9], regarded by Mr. Salter, however, as roots. Reference is made to a "curious nondescript vegetable organism"
- ↑ Afterwards pronounced by Prof. Nicol to be coniferous in character.
- ↑ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. ix. pp. 49, 50.
- ↑ Trans. Royal Geol. Soc. Cornwall, vii. pp. 230 and 289.
- ↑ 2nd edit. 80, p. 128, pl. vii.
- ↑ Brit.-Assoc. Rep. 1855, Trans. Sect. p. 83.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 85.
- ↑ Testimony of the Rocks, or Geology in its bearings on the Two Theologies, &c., 8vo.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 11.
- ↑ Figs. 118 and 119.
