. The testimony of the rocks; . ctly such a reticulated style of venation as myHelmsdale fragment. (See Fig. 152, p. 497.) The otherleaf, however, though also fragmentary, and but indiffer-ently preserved, seems to be decidedly marked by thedicotyledonous character; and so I continue to regard it,provisionally at least, as one of tlie first precursors in Scot-land of our great forest trees, and of so many of our llower-ing and fruit-bearing plants, and as apparently occupying FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND. 497 the same relative place in advance of its contemporaries asthat occupied by the conifer
. The testimony of the rocks; . ctly such a reticulated style of venation as myHelmsdale fragment. (See Fig. 152, p. 497.) The otherleaf, however, though also fragmentary, and but indiffer-ently preserved, seems to be decidedly marked by thedicotyledonous character; and so I continue to regard it,provisionally at least, as one of tlie first precursors in Scot-land of our great forest trees, and of so many of our llower-ing and fruit-bearing plants, and as apparently occupying FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND. 497 the same relative place in advance of its contemporaries asthat occupied by the conifer of the Old Red Sandstone inadvance of the ferns and Lycopodaceae with which I foundit associated. In the arrangement of its larger veins thebetter preserved Oolitic leaf somewhat resembles that of thebuckthorn; but its state of keeping is such that it has jfailed to leave its exterior outline in the stone. One or two general remarks, in conclusion, on the Ooliteflora of Scotland may be permitted me by the Association. Fig. In its aspect as a whole it greatly resembles the Oolite floraof Virginia, though separated in space from the locality inwhich the latter occurs by a distance of nearly four thou-sand miles. There are several species of plant? common to 42* 498 ON THE LESS KNOWN both, such as Equisetum columnare^ Catamites arenaceiis^Pecopteris Whitbiensis, Lycopodites iincifolius^ and ap-parently Tceniopteris magnifolia; both, too, manifest tliegreat abundance in which they were developed of old bythe beds of coal into which their remains have been con-verted. The coal of the Virginia Oolite has been profit-ably wrought for many years: it is stated by Sir CharlesLyell, who carefully examined the deposit, and has givenus the results of his observation in his second series ofTravels in the United States, that the annual quan-tity taken from the Oolitic pits by Philadelphia aloneamounted to ten thousand tons; and though, on the otherhand, the Sutherlandshire deposit has n
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