THE OLDEST KNOWN PETRIFIED FOREST ^ 



By WiNIFEED GOLDBING 



New York State Museum, Albany, N. Y. 



[With nine plates] 



Dreams do come true — sometime^; and one of the most recent 

 dreams of the New York State Museum was realized when, on 

 February 12, 1925, there was formally opened to the public the resto- 

 ration (see pi. 1) of the extensive forests that flourished in eastern 

 New York a few hundred million years ago during Upper Devonian 

 (Ithaca) times. The history of the discovery of these trees and the 

 gradual accumulation of material which led to the final solution of 

 their nature is almost a^ interesting as the ancient trees themselves. 



HISTORY OF DISCOVERIES 



Back in 1869, over half a century ago, the little village of Gilboa 

 in the Catskills (Schoharie County) came suddenly into prominence 

 from a paleobotanical point of view. In the autumn of that year 

 the upper valley of the Schoharie Creek was swept by a great freshet 

 which tore out bridges, culverts, and roadbeds around the little 

 village of Gilboa. But science, at least, has much for which to be 

 grateful, for at the same time that all this disaster was caused the 

 freshet very obligingly exposed in the bed rock along the creek stand- 

 ing stumps of fossil trees, all at the same level. The discovery of 

 these trees was described in the Albany Argus of January 30, 1870, 

 and in the twenty-fourth Museum Report (1872, for 1870) ; and it was 

 considered of so much importance that it was brought by Professor 

 Hall to the attention of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science in 1872. Excavations were made during the year 1870 in 

 the bed of sandstone containing these trees and five stumps and a 

 number of fragments were taken out of this ancient forest. The 

 greater part of thi^ material was brought to the State museum, 

 where it has for some time constituted a remarkable exhibit of the 

 ancient, extinct flora of the State. 



1 Reprinted by permission, with slight changes in the illustrations, from the Scientific 

 Monthly, Vol. XXIV, pp. 514-529, June, 1927. 



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