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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE PETRIFIED FOREST OF MISSISSIPPI 



By Professor CALVIN S. BROWN 



UNI^'ERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI 



THE petrified forests of Arizona are well known to geologists and 

 others interested in such things, but I am not aware that any- 

 thing has yet been published on the petrified forest at Flora, Mississippi. 



There are various forms of petrified woods in the state of Mississippi, 

 but the great majority of them are silicified woods. Many of them are 

 white or at least light-colored, and because of the color often go popu- 

 larly under the name of hickory wood or hickory logs. Petrifactions 

 which are formed in the lignite beds are often stained to a dark brown 

 or even black shade; one and the same trunk is sometimes found partly 

 petrified and partly lignitized. In the northeastern corner of the state 

 there are also found samples of wood in which iron-ore is the material 

 replacing the original woody structure. The beautiful wood jaspers, 

 carnelians, opals and agates of Colorado, Arizona and other western 

 states, are not ordinarily to be found in this state; though the Missis- 

 sippi trees sometimes show excellent quartz crystals of small size. 



Much of the Mississippi wood shows the vegetable structure almost 

 perfectly and tends to split with the grain of the wood. Thouiih a large 



Fig. 1. Showing line of de.marc.\tion between Qi'-^ternaky and Tertiary. 

 Above this line a log Is seen in its original position. Flora, Miss., June, 1912. 



