OF JOHN EDDOWES BOWMAN, ESQ. 69 
lation of mud and sand; and that the inequalities 
in such subsidences, occurring at long intervals 
and affording time for a copious deposition of se- 
dimentary matter—and occasionally taking place 
with a more paroxysmal rapidity—caused the in- 
equalities and interruptions and divisions now ob- 
servable in the successive seams of coal. 
In the midst of these inquiries, and tending to 
confirm the conclusions which they had led him to 
embrace—a discovery was made in the spring of 
1839 by Mr. John Hawkshaw, F.G.S. of some 
very remarkable Fossil Trees on the line of the 
Bolton Railway near Manchester. To these ve- 
nerable relics of a former world, his attention was 
at once and eagerly directed, and he communicated 
an account of them to the Manchester and London 
Geological Societies.* His paper exhibits, at least 
in part of it, a very interesting illustration in a 
particular case opportunely brought before his 
notice, of the general views which he had expoun- 
ded in his Essay on the origin of Coal. He ar- 
* Observations on the characters of the Fossil Trees lately 
discovered on the line of the Bolton Railway, near Manches- 
ter. Manchester Geological Transactions, Vol. I. Art. vi- 
Read January 30th, 1841. Read also before the London 
Geological Society, February 26th, 1841. 
