FOSSIL CONIFEROUS WOOD. 173 
petrified, but in the state of bog-wood, and was used for 
fuel by the workmen. Trunks ten or twelve feet long were 
met with, to which serpula, oysters (Ostrea delta), and other 
Shells were adherent. These vegetable remains were asso- 
ciated with Belemnites, Bolemngedut hades Ammonites, &e. ; 
and had evidently been drifted far out to sea by currents.* 
ConirERovus Woop IN THE CHALK FORMATION.—The arena- 
ceous limestones of the Greensand of Kent and Sussex 
abound, in some localities, in water-worn masses of conife- 
-rous wood, which are often perforated by boring mollusks, 
as Teredo, Fistulana, Gastrochena, &e. In the Tguanodon 
quarry of Kentish rag, near Maidstone, large quantities of 
these remains occur, and Mr. Bensted has collected several 
cones belonging to different kinds of conifers; one of these 
appears to be a species of Abies, or Fir :t it was associated 
_ with fragments of trunks and branches, whose internal struc- 
_ ture proved their relation to the fruit. Plate V. fig. 2, are 
microscopic views of transverse and longitudinal sections of 
this wood ; 2* shows the cellular tissue in a transverse slice, 
_ Seen by reflected light ; 2’ a vertical section in the direc- 
tion of the medullary rays, exhibiting the vessels studded 
with single rows of glands. This wood occurs both in a 
calcareous and siliceous state ; in some examples the exter- 
nal zones are calcareous, and the inner siliceous; in others 
the entire branch is changed into black flint, in which the 
coniferous structure is beautifully preserved. 
Near Willingdon, in Sussex (Geol. S. H. p. 172), a bed of 
| sand, immediately beneath the Galt, contains a layer of 
water-worn fragments of stems and branches, of small size ; 
they are generally perforated by Gastrochaene, and the cavi- 
ties formed by these depredators are filled with particles of 
green chlorite sand. The structure of this wood is repre- 
* See Wond. p. 502. Geol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 311. 
+ It is figured and described as Abies Benstedi, by the Author. 
Geol. Proc. January, 1843. 
