May, 1843.] 271 



feet in height and sixteen inches in diameter. All of them 

 were provided with well preserved roots, ramifying in the 

 substance of the surrounding argillaceous deposite. 



About one foot above the fossil trees is a layer of sand- 

 stone, and a partially disintegrated seam of coal a few inches 

 thick; fifteen feet below, and beneath the water in Big 

 Creek, is a seam of coal supposed to be from three to four 

 feet thick. Nodules of argillaceous iron ore are dissemi- 

 nated in the surrounding slaty clay. No appearance of a 

 dirt bed was discovered. 



The horizontal section of these trees exhibits no medullary 

 rays nor annual growths ; but the structure of the bark is 

 visible on the external part of most of the specimens, and 

 part of it is generally converted into a dark carbonaceous 

 substance. The scars, left from the falling off of the leaf- 

 stalks, though small, are distinctly visible in some of the 

 smaller specimens. From the diameter of these scars being 

 longer horizontally than vertically, and the absence of pa- 

 rallel flutings, these monocotyledonous fossil trees are consi- 

 dered as belonging to the family of palms. 



With the exception of the fossil palm trees, found at Dixon 

 fold, on the Bury and Bolton Railroad, in England, this ap- 

 pears to be the only authentic instance of the occurrence of 

 well preserved specimens of fossil palm trees in strata of the 

 arboniferous epoch. 



