260 Mr. E. W. Binney on Fossil Calamites in 



ing lands, and had not grown in the position in which thej' 

 are now found. But although it is certain that plants which 

 have been drifted by water generally })resent a broken appear- 

 ance, it is equally true that plants grown upon the spots where 

 they are now found, having been laid low by the action of 

 currents of water, or weighed down and buried by the weight 

 of mud or silt that had fallen upon them, afford similar ap- 

 pearances, so that gi'eat care must be taken before we conclude 

 that a plant has not grown on the place where it is now found 

 merely because we find it in fragments. 



A few years ago the whole of the fossil flora was generally 

 supposed to have been drifted. The first plant that was ex- 

 cepted from this rule and recovered its proper place was the 

 Stigmaria, whose long stringy rootlets prevented it from being 

 so conveniently drifted by currents as the advocates of the 

 drift hypothesis could desire; therefore it was allowed to have 

 grown where it is found. 



When numbers of Sigillariae were found standing erect on 

 seams of coal, and their roots had not been traced to their 

 extremities, it was at first attempted to refer them to accident, 

 like the snags now found in the Mississippi and other rivers. 

 However, a more careful observation of these fossils, and the 

 great number in which they were found, at length induced 

 geologists to admit that they must have grown where they 

 are now met with. The discovery of the trees at Dixon Fold 

 on the Manchester and Bolton Railway by Mr. John Hawk- 

 shaw, F.G.S., and so ably described by the late Mr. Bowman, 

 F.G.S., in the first volume of the Transactions of the Man- 

 chester Geological Society, mainly contributed to establish 

 this view, which has been since clearly proved by the certainty 

 that Stigmaria? are the roots of Sigillariae, as the fossil trees 

 of St. Helens and Dukinfield testify. 



As yet, however, Sigillaria was the only tree that to any 

 extent could be said to have been discovered m situ. 



In the present communication, it is intended to show that 

 Calamites have been found standing erect on the places in 

 which they grew by the side of Sigillariae, and that the root- 

 lets of the former ver}' much resemble, if they are not identical 

 with, those of the latter plant. 



The rootlets of Calamites have been very correctly figured 

 and described by Messrs. Lindley and Hutton in vol. i. pp. 78 

 and 79 of their Fossil P'lora of Great Britain ; but it is believed 

 by the writer that although numbers of erect Calamites have 

 been observed in the coal-measures, still none of them to his 

 knowledge have been described with their roots standing in 

 the position in which they had grown. 



