THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



OCTOBER 1845. *• ^ ; i ^ 



XXXV. A71 Account of the Fossil Trees found at St. Heleiils, 



By Edwaud William Binney and Robert Harkness*. 



[With two Plates.] 



ABOUT the beginning of August 1843, owing to the ex- 

 cavations made in the White Grit Quarry at Scotch- 

 row, near St. Helen's, three almost perfect specimens of fossil 

 trees were discovered. 



At the Cork meeting of the British Association, Mr. Binney 

 gave a verbal account of the fossils, and in October of the 

 same year read a paper upon them before the Manchester 

 Geological Society, which was afterwards published in the 

 Philosophical Magazine for March of last year. 



The fossils, then laid bare only on their western side, were 

 found standing almost upright in a thick deposit of indurated 

 gray silty clay, locally known by the name of " warren," which 

 lies immediately upon the white sandstone, which in this loca- 

 lity is about ten yards thick, and which it is necessary to re- 

 move before the white sandstone can be worked. The whole 

 thickness of the clay, as seen at this period, was about seven 

 yards, and the bases of the fosfeils were on an average about 

 eight feet above the white sandstone; above the clay there oc- 

 curred a deposit of till, about seven feet in thickness, which 

 appeared to cut off the upper portion of the trees ; all of which 

 stood in a line running nearly north and south, and at right 

 angles to the strata, which dip at an angle of about 23° to the 

 E.S.E. 



The geological position of the deposit in which the fossil 

 trees are met with, is in the lower part of the middle Lanca- 

 shire coal-field, about 119 yards above the Rushey-park seam, 

 the last thick coal in the series, and between the seams known 

 in the neighbourhood of St. Helen's by the names of the Sir 

 • Communicated by the Authors. 



¥hil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 27. No. 1 80. October 1 845. R 



