DISTK1CT UK CAFE HKKTON COUNTY. 1<»7 



world the first really satisfactory information* respecting the true 

 nature and mode of growth of Stigmaria; and to these I may refer the 

 reader, more especially to that in volume fifth of the "Geological 

 Journal," page 355, from which I quote the following account of a fine 

 specimen of Sigillaria alternans with Stigmaria roots, regularly rami- 

 fying, and having attached to them conical tap roots, which penetrated 

 directly downwards into a thin bed of shale overlying the main coal. 

 This seam, like the main seam at the Joggins, has, when it was a bed 

 of soft peat, supported a forest of Sigillaria' and Lc pidodendra, many 

 of which still remain erect in the overlying shale, with all their roots 

 and long spreading rootlets attached. 



" Immediately over the coal there is a bed of hard shale, six inches 

 in depth, in which no fossils are found ; this is overlaid by a softer 

 shale abounding in coal-plants ; all the upright trees that I have ex- 

 amined are rooted in the six-inch shale ; the crown of the base of that 

 which I am now describing is just four inches above the coal; its 

 roots dip gradually downwards until they come in contact with the 

 coal, at about eighteen inches from the centre of the tree, and then 

 spread out over its surface. When this fossil was brought out of the 

 mine the under side was covered up with hard shale, to Avhich about 

 one inch of coal adhered ; in cutting away this layer of coal, I met 

 with the termination of a perpendicular root immediately in contact 

 with the coal, which I carefully developed ; proceeding in this manner, 

 my patience was amply rewarded by the discovery of a complete set 

 of conical tap roots. The horizontal roots branch off in a remarkably 

 regular manner, the base being first divided into four ecpial parts by 

 deep channels running from near the centre ; an inch or two farther 

 on, each of these quarters is divided into two roots, which, as they 

 recede from the centre, bifurcate twice within a distance of eighteen 

 inches from the centre of the stump. 



" There are four large tap roots in each quarter of the stump, and, 

 about five inches beyond these, a set of smaller tap roots, striking 

 perpendicularly downwards from the horizontal roots, making forty- 

 eight in all : namely, sixteen in the inner, and thirty-two in the outer 

 set; and what is a still more remarkable feature in this singular 

 fossil, there are exactly thirty-two double rows of leaf-scars on the 

 circumference of the trunk. This curious correspondence in the 

 numbers of the roots and vertical rows of leaf-scars, surely cannot 

 be accidental. I am not aware that any similar correspondence has 



* Mr Binney can claim priority in date of publication ; but his specimens were much 

 less perfect in details of structure, and therefore less satisfactory than those described 

 by Mr Brown. 



