352 Dr James Macaulay on the Physical Geography , 



are perfectly distinct from the existing helices of Madeira. Ail 

 the branches and wood appear to belong to the same sort of 

 tree (of which there seems to have been a small forest on that 

 Bpot), and that evidently a dicotyledon ; but more than that I 

 do not think our present knowledge of the comparative ana 

 toray of timbers is sufficiently advanced to determine."* 



Albuquerque also describes the locality in great detail, and 

 has the same view of its nature ; mentioning that the branches 

 and roots, even the minutest ramifications, are so obvious, as to 

 leave no doubt of its being a vegetable formation. He consi- 

 dered it as coeval with the beds of vegetable soil which I have 

 alluded to as occurring along the coast in the vicinity of Fun- 

 chal. 



The formation has quite the appearance of what it is repre- 

 sented by Bowditch to be. The masses contained in the sand in 

 form and structure seem to be the stems and roots, not of forest 

 trees, indeed, but of a tract of heath or underwood. Of this I 

 was so much satisfied, that in my notes made at the place, I 

 find I have marked it as probable that the plant was the Vac- 

 einium Maderense^ which, throughout the island at present, 

 forms large thickets, similar in appearance to what we can con- 

 ceive this to have been. I visited the formation in company 

 with Mr Smith, Mr Buchanan Hamilton of Leny, and Dr John 

 Russel of Edinburgh, and none of the party had any doubt as 

 to the vegetable origin of the remains. 



Concerning the theory of the formation various opinions have 

 been submitted. Bov^ditch says " it must evidently have been 

 from an irruption of the sea, from the heaps of terrestrial shells 

 mingled with the marine ; and from the trees being found stand- 

 ing on their roots, and not deposited promiscuously, or flatten- 

 ed as by pressure of a superincumbent stratum afterwards re- 

 moved.'' The calcareous sand he thought to be derived either 

 from destruction of fragments of limestone in the bed of the 

 ocean, or from comminuted shells ; more probably the former. 

 Mr Smith, with much more probability, thought that it was an 

 ancient wood, sanded up b}^ a blown sand, composed of minute 

 fragments of basalt and comminuted shells, the same as forms 

 .. t 



* Bowditch's Excursions, pp. 139, 140. 



