THE PLANT WOELD 97 



GENERAL ITEMS. 



The cultivation of tea, which has been for some years carried on 

 experimentally at Summerville, S. C, now bids fair to develop into a 

 commercial success. Thousands of acres of land are now being bought 

 near Charleston, and it is contemplated to produce something like 

 300,000 pounds of tea annually for the American market. — American 

 Gardening. 



A most beautiful, interesting, and decidedly unique exhibit has just 

 been set up in the Mines Building of the Pan-American Exposition. It 

 is that of the agatized wood specimens from Chalcedony Park, Apache 

 county, Arizona, in charge of Mr. E. F. Batten, who represents the 

 Drake Company, of St. Paul, Minn. These specimens consist of cross 

 sections of trees polished to a high degree of brilliancy, and showing 

 most beautiful colors. In some of the specimens the fossilized bark still 

 surrounds the section of the tree. This petrified forest, of which Mr. 

 Batten has numerous pictures, looks more like a stone quarry than a 

 forest, as the trees are mostly strewn around in broken sections. One 

 picture, however, shows an almost perfect tree. Microscopical exam- 

 ination reveals a part of this wood to belong to the genus Araucari- 

 oxylon, a genus closely allied to Araiicaria, or the Norfolk Island 

 pine of the southern Pacific ocean. All the specimens examined 

 show that the wood was undergoing decay before being filled with 

 the various media which afterwards solidified. On some of the 

 specimens traces of fungi (mycelium) causing decay, may be plainly 

 seen. The process of petrification possibly resulted from the tree 

 being submerged by hot geysers bearing silicon in solution, the 

 rich oxides of Arizona intermixed with silicon and the cell tis- 

 sues of the wood were substituted by the siKcious solution and then 

 solidified. 



