Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 28.djvu/196

 in any case, owe their origin entirely to land-plants. The number of species of plants is inconsiderable in proportion to the large number of specimens which Nordenskiold and Malmgren have collected. I received the following species : — Calamites radiatus, Br. (C. transitionis, Gopp.), Cardiopteris frondosa, Gopp. sp., C. polymorpha, Gopp. sp., Paloeopteris Roemeriana, Gopp. sp., Sphenopteris Scchimperi, Gopp., Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, Sternb., L. commutatum, Schimp. (Ulodendron), L. Wickianum, Hr., L. Carneggianum, Hr., Lepidophyllum Roemeri, Hr., Knorria imbricata, Sternb., Kn. acicularis, Gopp., Cyclostigma Kiltorkense, Haught., C. minutum, Haught., Halonia tuberculosa, Brgn. ?, Stigmaria ficoldes, Sternb., Cardiocarpum punctulatun, Gopp., and G. ursinum, Hr., — in all eighteen species, of which only three have not yet been discovered in other places. The greater number of the plants, and all the most abundant forms, belong to known, and partly to widely spread species, and thus furnish us with the means of comparing this flora with those of other lands, and of the different subdivisions of the coal-formation. It contains three species in common with the Coal- measures ; but of these Lepidodendron Veltheimianum is the only one of importance ; for the determination of Halonia tuberculosa is not certain, and the Stigmarioe, consisting only of rhizomes of different plants, do not afford sufficient data for a comparison of species.

The flora of Bear Island differs, therefore, much from that of the Coal-measures, but quite as much on the other hand from that of the Devonian. If we compare it with the flora of the Cypris-shales of Saalfeld, in Thuringia, which belong to the Upper Devonian, we do not find a single species in common. Altogether the Devonian flora of Germany has no species in common with Bear Island ; for the statement that Calamites radiatus occurs in the Devonian is only founded on its presence at Kunzendorf, in Silesia, which locality belongs rather to the Lower Carboniferous than to the Devonian.

With the Lower Carboniferous flora the relations of that of Bear- Island are quite different. Of the eighteen species, fifteen occur in other localities in the Lower Carboniferous formation, ten in the Mountain Limestone, and nine in the Millstone-grit. It cannot, therefore, be doubted that the Bear-Island flora belongs to the Lower Carboniferous series. If we compare it carefully with fossil deposits of other lands, even neglecting the stratigraphical relations of the rocks containing the plants, it is clear that it has the greatest resemblance to the flora of the sandstones and shales lying immediately under the Mountain Limestone, and that it forms a distinct stage (etage) of the Lower Carboniferous, constituting a passage into the Upper Devonian. We may call this stage the Bear-Island or Ursa stage (Ursa-Stufe).

To this Ursa-stage belong the following plant-bearing localities : — Kiltorkan, and generally the Yellow Sandstones and Carboniferous Shales of the south-west of Ireland ; the Greywacke of the Vosges and the southern Black Forest ; the Verneuilii-shales of Aix, and St. John's in New Brunswick (Canada). As several of these have till now been regarded as Upper Devonian, it will be necessary