330 PETRIFIED TREES. [chap. xv. 



converted into coarsely-crystallised white calcareous spar. 

 They were abruptly broken off, the upright stumps pro- 

 jecting a few feet above the ground. The trunks measured 

 from three to five feet in circumference. They stood a 

 little way apart from each other, but the whole formed 

 one group. Mr. Robert Brown has been kind enough 

 to examine the wood : he says it belongs to the fir tribe, 

 partaking of the character of the Araucarian family, but 

 with some curious points of affinity with the yew. The 

 volcanic sandstone in which the trees were embedded, and 

 from the lower part of which they must have sprung, 

 had accumulated in successive thin layers around their 

 trunks ; and the stone yet retained the impression of the 

 bark. 



It required little geological practice to Interpret the 

 marvellous story which this scene at once unfolded ; 

 though I confess I was at first so much astonished, that 

 I could scarcely believe the plainest evidence. I saw the 

 spot where a cluster of fine trees once waved their branches 

 on the shores of the Atlantic, when that ocean (now driven 

 back 700 miles) came to the foot of the Andes. I saw 

 that they had sprung from a volcanic soil which had been 

 raised above the level of the sea, and that subsequently 

 this dry land, with its upright trees, had been let down 

 into the depths of the ocean. In these depths, the formerly 

 dry land was covered by sedimentary beds, and these 

 again by enormous streams of submarine lava — one such 

 mass attaining the thickness of a thousand feet ; and these 

 deluges of molten stone and aqueous deposits five times 

 alternately had been spread out. The ocean which re- 

 ceived such thick masses, must have been profoundly deep ; 

 but again the subterranean forces exerted themselves, and 

 I now beheld the bed of that ocean, forming a chain of 

 mountains more than seven thousand feet in height. Nor 

 had those antagonist forces been dormant, which are always 

 at work wearing down the surface of the land : the great 

 piles of strata had been intersected by many wide valleys, 

 and the trees, now changed into silex, were exposed pro- 

 jecting from the volcanic soil, now changed into rock, 

 whence formerly, in a green and budding state, they had 

 raised their lofty heads. Now, all is utterly irreclaimable 

 and desert ; even the lichen cannot adhere to the stony 

 casts of former trees. Vast, and scarcely comprehensible 

 as such changes must ever appear, yet they have all 



