193 REPORT— 1872, 



Notice of a Sillcified Forest in the Rocky Mountains, with an account of 

 a supposed Fossil Chip. By H, Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., D.Sc, 

 F.R.S.E., Professor of Natural History in University College, Toronto. 



The object of this communication was to describe two specimens which had 

 recently been presented to tlie Museum of Toronto University, Canada, by Mr. 

 Worthington of that city. One of the specimens is a large fragment of silicified 

 wood obtained by that gentleman from a fossil forest in the Hocky Mountains. 

 This forest is situated not far from Colorado city, at a supposed height of seven 

 thousand feet above the sea, in the neighbourhood of the mountain known aa 

 Pike's Peak, not far from Ute Pass. The forest covers a large area, the trees 

 standing apparently on the margins of an ancient lake. The stumps vary from 

 three to four feet in height, and from ten to twenty feet or more in diameter, and 

 there can be but little doubt as to their being the remains of a forest of the Sequoia 

 gigantea, which still lives in California. A similar forest was described by Professor 

 Marsh near Mount St. Helena, the age of which was shown to be later Pliocene ; so 

 that there is every probability that the antiquity of the present forest is the same. 



Another specimen is one of extreme interest, if only exact details were obtain- 

 able as to the circumstances under which it was found. It appears to be one 

 of many specimens which was picked up on the ground close to the stump of 

 one of these large trees ; and it presents all the appearances of a fossil chip struck 

 from the living tree by the hand of man. The author showed that every particular 

 in this specimen corresponded exactly with what is observable in an ordinary chip 

 cut from a standing tree by an experienced axe-man. This is especially the case 

 with the upper surface of the specimen, which presents a clean obliquely descend- 

 ing face, cutting across the fibres of the wood, and even exhibiting tlie unequal 

 shrinking of the different layers of wood, which is invariably observable whenever 

 soft wood is divided in this manner by a sharp instrument. Actual chips in every 

 respect undistinguishable from this specimen could be obtained anywhere in the 

 backwoods in Canada; and it seems impossible to doubt that it really was a chip 

 cut from one of these ancient trees. The chief difficulty in the way of this view is 

 the fact that the surfaces of incision are too clean to have been made by any thing 

 except a metal implement. It was impossible, however, to determine from the 

 data in hand what might be the date at which tliis fossil was silicified. 



On some Evidences suggestive of a Common Migration from the East, shown 

 hy Archaic Remains in America and Britain. By John S. PnEXlt, F.S.A., 

 F.O.S., F.R.G.S., F.R.I.B.A. 



The author first refen-ed to a paper read by him last year at the Meeting held 

 at Edinburgli, in which he had drawn attention to some remarkable mounds in 

 North Britain, which he considered were identical with the serpent and alligator 

 mounds of America. He stated that since that Meeting -he had opened the most 

 perfect of these British mounds, and with very satisfactory and interesting results ; 

 but as the particulars of the investigation had been published both by himself and 

 also by Aliss Constance F. Gordon Cummiug (in 'Good Words,' with an illustra- 

 tion), he should pass on to other matter. 



He then showed from drawings by several artists, including the names of 

 Mr. C. J. Lewis and Miss Gordon Gumming, by photographs, and by different 

 models taken by Mr. Mortimer Evans, C.E., F.G.S., of Glasgow, the peculiar 

 formation of the mound. 



He pointed out various difficulties he had mot with in coming to an accurate 

 decision about the mound, but how, finnlly, he found, on reducing it to scale and 

 taking the various levels, that it agreed al'most entirely with the Egyptian Urajus 

 and the Phrenician Serpent deity, each of which is represented in relics now 

 extant as in the precise position of the form of tlie mound, and each witli the solar 

 disk at its head, -nhich is found to correspond exactly with tlie cairn formerly 

 described as the head, but which is now found to be in the position of resting upon 

 it, assuming the figure were placed vertically instead of horizontally. 



