'91'.] STEVEXSOX— FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. 627 



that it may be well to supplement the references to buried swamps 

 by some notes upon buried forests. 



Russell's^^" description of conditions on the Yahtse river of 

 Alaska relates that the stream, issuing as a swift current from 

 beneath the glacier, has invaded a forest at the east and has sur- 

 rounded the trees with sand and gravel to a depth of many feet. 

 Some of the dead trunks, still retaining their branches, project above 

 the mass, but the greater part of them have been broken oiT and 

 buried in the deposit. Other streams, east from the Yahtse, have 

 invaded forests, as is indicated by dead trees standing along their 

 borders. Where the deposit is deepest, the trees have already dis- 

 appeared and the forest has been replaced with sand tlats. The 

 decaying trunks are broken off by the wind and are buried in pros- 

 trate position. This deposit, consolidated, would resemble closely a 

 Coal Measures conglomerate. 



The submerged forest on the Columbia river of Oregon was 

 observed first by Lewis and Clark and it was examined almost 30 

 years afterwards by Wilkes ; but Newberry"" was the first to study 

 it in detail. ITe found the river bordered at intervals on each side 

 by the erect but partially decayed stumps of trees, which project in 

 considerable numbers above the surface of the water. These stumps 

 belong to the Douglas spruce, which still covers the mountain slopes. 

 The dam at the Cascades is a conglomerate, penetrated by threads 

 of silica, often filling cavities with agate and chalcedony. It con- 

 tains many trunks of trees, some of them merely carbonized, others 

 silicified, while still others show both conditions. These trunks have 

 a microscopic structure closely resembling that of the Douglas 

 spruce. The writer may add that similar conditions exist in the 

 buried forest near Salem on the Willamette river in the same state. 



Along the whole Atlantic coast from Xova Scotia to Florida, one 

 finds sunken forests now buried under peat or sediments. Dawson 

 described one seen on the coast of Nova Scotia at 25 to 30 feet 

 below high tide, where the stumps were rooted in material, having 



"' L C. Russell, " Second Expedition to Mount St. Elias," Thirteenth 

 Ann. Rep. U. S. Geo). Survey, 1893. Pt. I., p. 14, PI. XH. 



""J. S. Xewberry, Pacific Railroad Explorations, Vol. VI., 1856, "Geo- 

 logical Report," p. 56. 



225 



