Small disc-shaped bodies have frequently been noticed in coal and the accompanying shales. Specimens were figured by Mr. Prestwich in 1840, in his paper on the Geology of Coalbrook Dale (Geol. Trans., Second Series, vol. v., tab. xxxviii., ff. 8, 8a); and Professor Morris, who described Mr. Prestwich's fossils, characterises them as ‘capsules’ of his Lepidodendron longibracteatum. But it does not appear from either the illustrations of the two spikes of his species, or from the letter-press, that he had found the capsules associated with the reniform thecæ of the spikes. Prof. Balfour has also figured and described similar bodies in a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1854. He found them in the ‘splint-coal’ of Fordel, near Inverkeithing, in Fife. He says, ‘Besides Sigillarias and Stigmarias, we also detect in the Fordel Coal peculiar rounded organisms which have the appearance of seeds. Dr. Fleming informs me that similar bodies have been observed by him in coal, and that he exhibited them to Mr. Witham about twenty years ago. They have also been seen by Dr. Fleming in Lochgelly and Arniston “parrot,” and in the coal at Boghead; and from having observed them in “cherry,” “splint,” and “cannel” coals, he is disposed to consider them as a somewhat common feature. I have seen them in coal from Miller Hill, near Dalkeith, as well as in the coalfrom Fife. They appear to be certainly allied to the fructification of the Lycopodiaceæ of the present day, more particularly to that form of it which consists of two valves placed in apposition and containing what is called Lycopode-powder. Theae and like bodies I, therefore, consider to be the sporangia or spore-cases of some plant allied to Lycopodium, perhaps Sigillaria. The valves present under the microscope a reticulated surface, and minute granular matter seems to be attached to the inner surface.’—(Edin. Trans., vol. xxi. p. 191).

In the number of the GeologicalMagazine for last August, in a letter from Mr. Mackintosh, there is a notice of some markings, supposed to be glacial, on a rock known as ‘The Bloody Stone’, between Cromford and Bonsall, in Derbyshire. Mr. Mackintosh's language is not very clear, but I rather gather that he has doubts whether these markings were really made by ice: nor does he seem to be aware of the great interest that would attach to the discovery, if it could be proved beyond question that we have here a true ice-marked surface of rock. It is, I believe, very generally the case that the deposits and, so to speak, footmarks of the Glacial epoch are found on the western side of the central axis of the north of England in much greater force than on the eastern side. Thus much I can say from personal observation: in North Staffordshire and Lancashire, boulder-clays and gravels are found stretching from the plains far up the hill-sides, and erratic blocks lie here and there upon the moors to a height of 1,400 feet above the sea. On the other side of the socalled Pennine Chain, however, the case is widely different: through-out the whole of North Derbyshire and the adjoining uplands of Yorkshire there is nothing that can be safely set down as Drift, and certainly no blocks or pebbles of foreign rocks over the country to the north of the Wye. The valley of that river cuts right across the Great Saddle; and along it, and to the south of it, we do find stray patches of clay with ice-scratched boulders, mostly of limestone, but here and there of granite, greenstone, and other strangers, which seem to have found their way from the west along this sole opening in the barrier which elsewhere blocked up their path. ‘The Bloody Stone’ is just a case in point, lying as it does in the valley of the Derwent, about seven miles below the junction of the Wye with thatriver. I was, therefore, extremely glad to see Mr. Mackintosh's letter just in time to pay a visit to the spot, and I shall tell as carefully as I can what I there saw, in hopes that more experienced ice-men, if they cannot go to see for themselves, may be enabled to decide whether we can fairly refer the markings in question to the action of ice.

‘The Coal-measure hills that form the outer margin of the Castlecomer table-land are generally covered with local drift; but the drift on nearly all the other Coal-measure hills is largely composed of limestone, even on the top of hills 700 feet high. What is most remarkable, however, is that in some places there are valleys and plains not more than 400 feet above the sea without a particle of limestone-drift on them, while hills in their vicinity are covered with it’.

In sinking the various pits in the Queen's County Collieries, a Stratified Drift was found under some of this Boulder-clay. When the place was visited, none of these sections could be examined; but fortunately a record of each was kept in the ‘bore-books’ that are in the possession of the different agents and proprietors.