NOTES ON THE FOSSIL TREES IN A MARL 

 PIT AT HANLEY. 



BY JOHN WARD. 



THE geological position of the beds of marl in which 

 these trees were found is the upper middle or Pottery 

 division of the North Staffordshire coal-field. They ap- 

 pear to lie between the gutter or Fenton Low coal and 

 the bassy mine ironstone. They bear a close resemblance 

 to what is commonly known in this district as the pea- 

 cock marl, so called from lying close to a bed of coal 

 called the peacock coal, which takes its name from its 

 iridescence, which is supposed to resemble the feathers of 

 the peacock. This bed of coal is very general in the 

 Pottery coal-field, and affords an excellent datum-line to 

 the over-lying strata. In the marl pit there are two beds 

 of coal, both of which are of little commercial value. 



The large specimen which was standing erect was dis- 

 covered in the summer of 1867. My attention was 

 directed to it by a paragraph I saw in the Staffordshire 

 Advertiser, in the month of June in that year. At that 

 period about two feet of the fossil was exposed. I was 

 informed by the workmen that some six or seven feet had 

 then been broken away before its true character had been 

 discovered. This was fully borne out by the impression 

 left in the marl against which it had lain. From the 

 time it was first discovered up to the time we saw it, it 



