METEORITES FOUND IN SEAMS OF COAL. 313 



*' The only other mode of transport which suggests itself 

 is seaweed. Dr. Beck informs me, that in Lym-Fiord in 

 Jutland, the Fucus vesiculosus, often called Kelp, some- 

 times grows to the height of ten feet ; and the branches 

 rising from a single root form a cluster several feet in dia- 

 meter. When the bladders are distended, the plant be- 

 comes so buoyant as to float up loose stones several inches 

 in diameter, and these are thrown by the waves high up on 

 the beach. The Fucus giganteus of Solander, so common 

 in Terra del Fuego, is said by Captain Cook to attain the 

 length of 360 feet, although the stem is not much thicker 

 than a man's thumb. It is often met with floating at sea, 

 with shells attached, several hundred miles from the spots 

 where it grew. * Some of these plants,' says Mr. Darwin, 

 * were found adhering to large loose stones in the inland 

 channels of Terra del Fuego, during the voyage of the 

 Beagle in 1834 ; and that so firmly, that the stones were 

 drawn up from the bottom into the boat, although so heavy 

 that they could scarcely be lifted in by one person.'" 



No doubt there is a far greater abundance of fossil trees 

 in the coal-measures than in the chalk ; but still there is little 

 evidence to show that it is at all probable that the stones 

 found in coal seams had been carried to the places where 

 they are now met with in the roots of trees, any more 

 than that the trees themselves were drifted. Doubtless a 

 Sigillaria, having immense stigmarige roots, with radicles 

 radiating from them in all directions to a great length, 

 would be as likely a root as could be desired for the 

 purpose of conveying a stone. But where and how is the 

 Sigillaria to get loaded with its burden ? This is a 

 difficult question to answer. The plant, of which this re- 

 markable fossil is the root, must have grown beyond all 

 question in soft mud, and not on a rocky bottom; and, even 

 if it had grown in the latter position, coal seams, in Lan- 

 cashire at least, as I have shown in a paper printed in the last 



2s 



