126 THE MEDALS OF CREATION. Cuav. VI, 
to each other. Their roots are branched, and spread out in 
the bed of impure coal in which they are implanted. The 
trunks are surrounded by a soft blue shale. The largest tree 
is eleven feet high, and seven and a half feet in circum- 
ference at the base ; its trunk is gnarled and knotted, and 
has many decorticated prominences, like those in barked 
timber of our old dicotyledonous trees ; the roots, too, par- 
take of the same character.* The others are respectively 
from three to five feet in height. A sketch of one of the 
Lien. 32. BAsE oF A TRUNK OF A SIGILLARIA, WITH Roots, 
standing erect with five other stems, in Carboniferous strata. 
(The original is four feet high.) 
short stems is subjoined. All the trees were broken off as 
if by violence, and no traces of the upper part of the stems 
or branches were detected. 
In the stratum through which the roots extend, a consi- 
derable quantity of the fossil cones, called Lepidostrobi, 
hereafter described, were imbedded (see Lign. 40). A thin 
layer of coal which invested the stems, was evidently the 
these highly interesting relics of the carboniferous forests may be 
obtained. 
An excellent Memoir on this discovery, with illustrations, by Mr. 
Hawkshaw, is given in Geol. Trans. vol. vi. pl. xvii. See Pict. Atlas, 
p. 198; and Petrifactions, p. 36. 
* See Mr. Bowman’s Memoir, Geol. Proe. vol. iii. p. 270. 
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