. The testimony of the rocks; . ourlay* of this city (Glasgow) added toour fossil flora a new Volkmannia from the coal field ofCarluke; and I detected very recently in a neighboringlocality (the Airdrie coal field), though in but an indiflferentstate of keeping, what seems to be a new and very peculiarfern. It presents at first sight more the appearance of a * Now, alas! no more. In Mr. Gourlay the energy and shrewd busi-ness habits of the accomplished merchant were added to an enlightenedzeal for general science, and no inconsiderable knowledge in both thegeologic and botanic provinces. The m
. The testimony of the rocks; . ourlay* of this city (Glasgow) added toour fossil flora a new Volkmannia from the coal field ofCarluke; and I detected very recently in a neighboringlocality (the Airdrie coal field), though in but an indiflferentstate of keeping, what seems to be a new and very peculiarfern. It presents at first sight more the appearance of a * Now, alas! no more. In Mr. Gourlay the energy and shrewd busi-ness habits of the accomplished merchant were added to an enlightenedzeal for general science, and no inconsiderable knowledge in both thegeologic and botanic provinces. The marked success, in several respects,of the brilliant meeting of the British Association which held in Glasgowin September, 1855, was owing in no small measure to the indefatigableexertions and well calculated arrangements of Mr. Goui-lay. 464 ON THE LESS KXOWN Cycadaceous frond than any other vegetable organism ofthe Carboniferous age which I have yet seen. From amid stem there proceed at right angles, and in alternate Fig. order, a series of sessile, lanceolate, acute leaflets, nearlytwo inches in length by about an eighth part of an inch inbreadth, and about three lines apart. Each is furnishedwdth a slender midrib ; and, what seems a singular, thoughnot entirely unique, feature in a fern, their edges aredensely hirsute, and bristle with thick, short hair, nearly asstiff as prickles. The venation is not distinctly preserved ;but enough remains to show that it must have been pecu-liar,— apparently radiating outwards from a series ofcentres ranged along the midrib. Nay, the apparent hairsseem to be but prolongations of the nerves carried beyondthe edges of the leaflets. There is a Stigmaria, too, on thetable, very ornate in its sculpture, of which I have nowfound three specimens in a quarry of the Lower Coal Meas-ures near Portobello, that has still to be figured and FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND. 465 described. In this richly ornamented Stigmaria theFig. 126. characteristic
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