86 On the Fossil Vegetation of America. 
Arr. XI1.—On the Fossil Vegetation of America; by J. E. 
"T'ESCHEMACHER. 
On the 17th June, 1846, Iread a paper before the Boston Natural 
History Society, on the fossil vegetation of America, which will 
probably be published in the forthcoming number of their Jour- 
nal, with plates. 
I propose the present communication as a continuation of that 
er.* 
’ Having recently received, by the liberality of Dr. L. Feucht- 
wanger, a number of specimens from the coal mines of Carbon- 
dale, Pa., I will proceed to describe a portion of them, after offer- 
ing a few general observations. 
The well understood and authenticated alternation of growth 
in the American forests, of resinous and hard wood trees,+ must 
create surmises as to the probability of the existence of the same 
law during the growth of the successive forests which formed the 
successive layers of coal, a large portion of which were certainly 
of resinous woods. But we find no evidence or appearance of 
the same alternation taking place with the undergrowths of recent 
forests, particularly with the Fern and Equisetum tribes. The 
constituents of the Equisetacee are better known than those of 
the Filices; and silica, the chief inorganic ingredient of the 
former is usually in such quantity in most soils, particularly in those 
rom the recent disintegration of early crystalline rocks, that it 
would not be easily exhausted so as to render this alternation of 
growth necessary. 
Sigillarize, (which I consider as the stems of Filices, ) with leaves 
f Filices, and Calamites, (probably Equisetaceous plants,) are 
found in all coal deposits hitherto examined ; whether the highly 
resinous tribe exists in all, is yet to be ascertained. 
An important source of information is presented by the veg- 
etable remains existing in the coal itself, leaving out of consider- 
ation those in the shaly roofs, and clayey floors of the mines. 
The P. y ] ia anthracit ter many sp i s of these : what 
is termed charcoal is commonly found in seams and crevices in 
the coal, and in most of this, the vegetable tissues, although carbon- 
ized, are in perfect preservation. Ihave selected some specimens 
in which the indication of different kinds of wood is very clear ; 
Ing there to be white and piteh pine, maple, ash, beech, oak, walnut, &e., and 
says that Capt. Samuel Alden, who died there in 1780, aged 93, remembered t 
st white pine tree that appeared in the town, one eighth of which, in 1793, was 
covered with them. 
