STERNBERGIA. 169. 
surrounded by a thick ligneous cylinder, having enabled ~ 
_ that acute observer to detect the structure of the origi- 
_-nal.* The Sternbergize are sandstone casts of central 
by cavities existing within the true pith ; which cavities, under 
some Benieble conditions, were filled with inorganic mate- 
“rials. Mr. Williamson is inclined to believe that all the 
coniferous wood from the coal-measures, belonging to the 
- genus Dadoxylon, is referable to the trees of whose piths 
_ the Sternbergie approximate are internal casts; and that 
some of the foliaceous appendages of these trees have been 
confounded with Lepidodendra. t 
_ Perrirrep Forests or Contrers.—The most remarkable 
assemblage of fossil conifers is that presented in the well- 
_ known quarries in the Island of Portland, to which allusion 
was made when describing the Mantelliz obtained from that 
locality (ante, p. 157). Referring to Wond. p. 385,+ for an 
account of the geological circumstances under anche the 
phenomena occur, it will suffice to state that a forest of 
pines appears to have been submerged, and the trunks to 
have become petrified, whilst standing erect on the spot 
where they grew; the Cycads still shoot up as it were 
between the stems, and the roots of the trees, though 
changed into flint, extend into the bed of mould whence 
they originally derived support, and which is so little 
altered in appearance, as to be called the Dirt-bed, by the» 
quarrymen ; thus realizing the fable of the petrified city in 
Arabian story, whose inhabitants were turned into stone, in 
the varied attitudes of life. 
No foliage has been observed in connexion with these 
trees ; not a leaf has been found in the rocks: a cone, 
i a. > 
- 
* See Prof. Williamson’s Memoir on Sternbergie, Manchester 
Philos. Trans. 1851. 
+ Ibid. p. 355. 
¢ Geol. I. of Wight, p. 394. Petrifactions, p. 56. 
