H. WM. Cadell—Plant-remains in Basalt, Bo’ ness. 219 
The late Mr. F. A. Fouqué, describing some phenomena observed on 
Etna, says! (trans.): ‘‘ The lava of the 1865 eruption flowed through 
the midst of a wood of lofty trees. . . . Many trees had been 
torn up or burnt. Nevertheless, a great number of them remained 
standing on each side of the fissure, in spite of the movements of the 
ground and in spite of the incandescent current which had for a 
moment surrounded them. ‘The trees thus preserved were all, without 
exception, surrounded by a stony sheath formed of solidified lava. 
The interior surface of this sheath had moulded itself on the surface 
of the tree, of the bark of which it sometimes reproduced all the details 
with surprising fidelity.” 
Mr. R. H. Walcott? has described a pseudomorphous replacement by 
solid basalt of a tree 10 feet high with a branch and roots. ‘The stem 
has an average circumference of 31 inches: ‘‘The surface bears a 
number of corrugations and has the identical appearance of bark.” 
«The surrounding basalt comprising the mould in which the tree was 
formed, judging from the two available pieces, is to all appearances of 
the same nature as the cast.” The cast was found in a quarry at 
Footscray (which appears to be close to Melbourne). 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XI. 
The photograph shows the piece of scoriaceous basalt preserved in the Michoacan 
Museum, Morelia, Mexico. The specimen measures 12-09 inches in height, 
13-26 in width, and 7-60 in thickness (front to back). Impressions of ears 
of maize are shown on the right () just below the right upper corner, 
(2) towards centre of margin overhanging a cavity, (¢) at the two right 
bottom corners; but the most striking example is just above the two 
converging central cavities, where an ear in a vertical position shows not only 
impressions but actual grains of maize. Several other impressions occur, but 
are indistinct in the plate. The figure is slightly less than 3 lmear of the 
size of the original specimen. 
[In connection with the foregoing note on Plant-remains in Basalt from Mexico, 
the subjoined observation by Mr. H. M. Cadell, B.Sc., F.R.S.E., reprinted from 
the Trans. Geol. Soc. Edinb., vol. vi (1892), pl. vi, pp. 191-193, deserves to be 
recorded here.—Epir. Grou. Mace. | 
VII.—Tne Occurrence or Prant Remars in Oxivine Basar IN THE 
Bo’nxrss CoALFIELD. 
By Henry M. Capett, B.Sc., F.R.S.E. 
(PLATE XIV.*) 
ile a paper which I read before the Edinburgh Geological Society on 
26th January, 1880, and which appears in the Transactions, 
yol. iii, pp. 304-825, a general stratigraphical account is given of the 
extensive series of interbedded volcanic rocks of the Bo’ness Coalfield 
in Linlithgowshire. 
1 «Sur la non-altération des couches de houille en contact avec des roches 
éruptives’’: Bull. Soc. géol. France, ser. 11, vol. xxiii (1866), pp. 190-193. 
2 «« Note on a Basalt Tree Cast’? : Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria (Australia), new series, 
vol. xii, pt. 2 (1900), pp. 139-144, pl. xii. 
3 The block for Plate XIV has been obligingly lent by the author, Mr. H. M. 
Cadell, F.R.S.E. 
