396 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF PORTLAND. 



undisturbed in their native forests. Their roots 

 extend into the soil of the dirt-bed, and their 

 trunks into the superincumbent strata of lime- 

 stone.* 



As the Portland building stone lies beneath 

 these beds, and the Cap is only used for lime, the 

 fossil trees are removed and thrown by as useless, 

 and the dirt-bed cleared away, to arrive at the 

 more valuable material. On one of my visits to 

 the Island, the surface of a large area of the dirt- 

 bed was exposed, preparatory to its removal, and 

 the appearance presented by the fossil trees was 

 most striking. The floor of the quarry was lite- 

 rally strewn with fossil wood, and before me was 

 a petrified forest, the trees and the plants, like the 

 inhabitants of the city in Arabian story, being 

 converted into stone, yet still remaining in the 

 places they occupied when alive ! Some of the 

 trunks were surrounded by a conical mound of 

 calcareous earth, which had evidently, when in the 

 state of mud, accumulated around the stems and 

 roots. The upright trunks were in general a few 

 feet apart, and but three or four feet high ; they 

 were broken and splintered at the top, as if the 



* The diagram of the fossil trees in Lulworth Cove, p. 384, if placed with 

 the lines of stratification in a horizontal position, will serve to illustrate this 

 description. 



