LINES ON A FOSSIL TREE.* 



BY ROBERT GARNER, F.L.S. 



THOU sered and shattered wreck of time untold ! 

 Low let me bow, and awestruck ask of thee, 

 Like Augur at Dodona's oak so old, 

 To tell the bye-gone, not futurity. 



Old ! said I ? What compared with thee is so ? 

 Not grove Thessalian, nor, perforce, of fate 

 The mystic tree in Eden that did grow, 

 Nor gophir, unknown wood ; these all are late 



Late in creation's eve. Older thou art, 

 Weird form, than paradise, than man, than sin. 

 Ther're tongues in trees, they say ; then now impart 

 Somewhat of ancient times ; come speak ! begin, 



Older than mountain chain than Mow or Cloud, 

 Than Alp or Jura dead and buried thou, 

 Long e'er they rose ; though, with them rising, bowed 

 And tilted rudely was thy butt I trow. 



* NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. The members of the North Staffordshire Natu- 

 ralists' Field Club were entertained by Mr. R. Stevenson in a vast amphi- 

 theatre on his property at Hanley, formed by an excavation for the extraction 

 of the fire-clay of the upper coal measures. At the bottom stood the stock 

 of a large fossil tree, perhaps a sigillaria, which the workmen had laid bare, 

 and near were tables spread for the entertainment of the numerous party. 

 Mr. J. E. Davis, stipendiary magistrate, whose name is not unknown to Silu- 

 rian geologists, delivered an interesting and eloquent address. 



