ABSTRACT
A congress was held at Moscow University on the 25th anniversary of the first Russian study on pollen analysis as an aid to geology. Though a pollen grain can only be seen with a microscope, its wall is not only remarkably tough, but resists decay much better than wood or leaves. So pollen grains are found in mud or peat thousands of years old where most other vegetable remains are unrecognisable. Pollen analysis may even help us to distinguish the truth or falsehood of various legends about Kings Arthur and Alfred. According to the accounts of the pollen congress, Soviet workers are using the same method on coal seams. Some coal seams, for example the Better Bed in Yorkshire, are largely made up of spores of plants resembling the modern club-mosses and ferns. These plants did not bear seeds, but produced vast amounts of spores no larger than pollen grains.
