386 Geological Society. 
the receipts have exceeded the expenditure.” And this is even 
after having defrayed the cost of printing Transactions, which have 
not yet had time to make any return. £1020. 9s. has been raised 
by subscription to effect alterations and improvements in the Mu- 
seum, which have been completed, and now display to advantage a 
collection of very considerable value and extent. 
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Fossil Trees.—The President’s Address contains the following ac- 
count of a communication of Mr. Hawkshaw, read June 5, 1839. 
We have received an interesting communication from Mr. Hawk- 
shaw respecting a remarkable disclosure made in the Bolton Railway, 
six miles north of Manchester, of five fossil trees in a position vertical 
to the plane of the strata in which they stand. The roots are im- 
bedded in a soft argillaceous shale immediately under a thin bed 
of coal. Near the base of one tree, and beneath the coal, more than 
a bushel of hard clay nodules was found, each inclosing a cone of 
Lepidostrobus variabilis. The bark of the trees was converted to 
coal, from one quarter to three quarters of an inch thick; the sub- 
stance which has replaced the interior of the trees is shale; the cir- 
cumference of the largest of them is 154 feet at the base, 74 at the 
top, and its height 11 feet. One tree has spreading roots, four feet 
in circumference, solid and strong. By the care of Mr. Hawkshaw 
these trees have been preserved, and a covering is erected over 
them. The attendant phenomena seem to show that they grew 
upon the strata that lie immediately beneath their roots*. 
Feb. 26.—A paper was first read, entitled ‘‘ Further observations 
on the Fossil Trees found on the Manchester and Bolton railway ;” 
by John Hawkshaw, Esq., F.G.S. 
Since Mr. Hawkshaw’s former communication, another fossil 
tree has been found on the opposite side of the railway. It is about 
three feet in height, and three feet in circumference, and stands on 
the same thin stratum of coal as those first discovered, and perpen- 
dicularly to the surface of the bed. Mr. Hawkshaw is, therefore, 
strengthened in his belief, that the trees grew in the position in 
which they are found. 
After this notice of the recent discovery, he proceeds to describe 
the effects produced in hot and moist climates on felled or pro- 
strated solid dicotyledonous trees. The tropical forests with which 
he is acquainted from personal examination, are situated in Vene- 
zuela on the shore of the Carribean sea, and between the 8th and 
10th degrees of north latitude, and the 65th and 70th of west longi- 
tude. In these forests a few months are sufficient to destroy the 
interior of the largest tree, little more being left than an outer shell, 
consisting chiefly of the bark. Mr. Hawkshaw noticed this pecu- 
liarity more frequently in dicotyledonous trees, having a proper bark, 
* See the abstract of this paper in L. & E. Phil. Mag. vol. xv. p. 539. 
