NEW SOUTH WALES. 2&9 



gers to powder; some consisted of chalk and 

 brown earth, and others had detained a few por- 

 tions of their woody fibres, the spaces between 

 which were filled up with chalk or earth. 



It appeared, when the people of the Sidney- 

 cove came on the island, the pieces of dead 

 branches at this time lying round the stumps, 

 then formed, with them, the stem and branches 

 of dead trees completly. But by this time cu- 

 riosity, and the frolics of the horse landed from 

 the Sidney-Cove, had reduced them to the state 

 described. 



Mr. Bass had been told that the trees when in 

 a complete state, rose from the stoney part ; and 

 that a living leaf was seen upon the upper bran- 

 ches of one of them. But he could never learn 

 whether the stoney part of the stem was of an 

 equal height in all the trees. 



To ascertain to what depth the petrification 

 decended, Mr. Bass scratched away the sand 

 from the foot of many of the stumps, and in no 

 instance found it to have proceeded more than 

 three or four inches beneath the surface of the 

 sand, for at that depth the remains of the root 

 came to view. There were parts of the roots which 

 had undergone an alteration similar to that 

 which had taken" place in the stems: these es- 

 tablished the limits of the petrifying power ; for 

 they had felt it only either at their outset from 

 the bottom of the stems, or when, being obstruct- 

 ed in their progress, they had arched upwards 

 tp the surface. 



