490 STEVENSON— THE FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. l^ov. j, 



region, where one has only natural exposures for study and the 

 shales are so easily disintegrated that only the basset is exposed. 

 Woodworth'" studying the more or less indurated shales of the 

 Massachusetts region was led by discovery of rain prints to look 

 for batrachian footprints. The search was rewarded almost at 

 once by discovery of impressions belonging to two individuals. 

 Study of the prints convinced him that they were made under 

 slight cover of water. Many scratches were found on the shale 

 surface, resembling those made by the sharp toes of newts in 

 very shallow water. 



In situ forests occur frequently in shale beds. Gresley'^ re- 

 ported that 7 erect trees were found in the roof of the Buck Moun- 

 tain coal bed at Haven River colliery. He says that tree-stumps 

 with Stigmaria roots are of common occurrence in the roofs of 

 several anthracite beds. That of the Baltimore at Wilkesbarre 

 yielded one, 36 inches in diameter at a few feet above the roots. 

 Comparatively few instances of trees in situ have been recorded 

 in the coal fields of the United States and most of the notes, which 

 the writer has found, seem to have been made incidentally and 

 are without detail, as are most of those with reference to similar 

 occurrences in sandstones.'- Long ago Owen^^ described a forest 

 discovered at 12 miles from New Harmony, Indiana. More than 20 

 fossil stumps had been found in excavating the site for a mill and 

 dam. He disinterred three with 5 to 7 main roots, which ramified 

 in the surrounding material. As these trees, trunks and roots were 

 in normal position, he believed that they had grown there and had 



™J. B. Woodworth, "Vertebrate Footprints on Carboniferous Shales 

 of Plainville, Massachusetts," Bull. Geol. Soc. Anier., Vol. 11, 1900, pp. 



449-454- 



" W. S. Gresley, " Seven fossil Tree Trunks, probably in situ, found 

 in Roof of a 12-feet seam of Anthracite in Schuylkill Co., Penn.," Trans. 

 Manch. Geol. Soc, Vol. XXL, 1890, p. 70. 



'" There is ample reason to expect that when D. White publishes the 

 results of his investigations, all grounds for this complaint will disappear. 



" D. D. Owen, " On Fossil Palm Trees," Amer. Journ. Sci., Vol. XLV., 

 1843, PP- 336, 337- 



