LYELL. 331 



investigations with Dr. Dawson, then a compara- 

 tively unknown school missionary struggling to 

 learn something about nature, and now one of the 

 most distinguished geologists in the world. They 

 dug out roots called by fossilists stigmariae, which 

 once supported huge trees called sigillariae in the 

 days of the coal formation, and they measured 

 foot by foot many hundreds of yards of the cliffs 

 of the now celebrated place called Toggins, in 

 Nova Scotia. There they found rows of trees, one 

 over the other, erect, and indicating that, when the 

 part of the earth now cut into by the sea and 

 exposed as a cliff was formed, there was a series of 

 ages, each having its forest, each of which was over- 

 whelmed, and thus forest after forest accumulated. 

 Amongst the trees were some hollow ones, and 

 they contained little fossils, such as shells and 

 scales. They were objects of interest, but it 

 was not until later on that Lyell and Dawson 

 saw their importance. This subterranean forest 

 exceeds in extent and quantity of timber all that 

 have been found in Europe put together. The new 

 deposit of red sand of the numerous estuaries there 

 afforded them endless instruction. " At this place, 

 Truro, the tide is said to rise seventy-five feet, 

 and we see the bottom of a deep salt-water sea, its 

 rippled sands, shells and holes of Mya and Tellifta 

 and their tracks, footmarks of birds and worms, the 

 manner in which the clays crack and are marked 

 with the rain, and sometimes shells included recently 

 in solid models of claystone. I have also learned 



