Notice of Dr. MantelVs Medals of Creation. 119 



M. Adolphe Brongniart were Coniferas, resembling externally 

 CaciecB or EuphorhicB, but in internal organization Zamim or 

 Cycadece. Near Liverpool, (Eng.) there has been discovered an 

 upright trunk of a Sigillaria 9 feet high, with its roots 8 or 9 

 feet long, and still attached in their natural position. These roots 

 prove to be what have been \\%mb\\y cdWedi Stigmaria fucoides, 

 and their radicles have been regarded as leaves, Sigillarias and 

 Stigmariee are therefore identified — the former being the stem 

 and the latter the roots. 



The Lepidodendra are considered as gigantic club mosses and 

 ground pine ; there are about 200 living species, and they are 

 most of them creeping plants, and none exceed 3 feet in height. 

 A fossil Lepidodendron was found in the Jarrow colliery, Dur- 

 ham County, England, 40 feet high, and 13 feet in diameter, 

 (circumference ? — Eds.) divided into 15 to 20 branches. 



In the famous Portland fossil forest, silicified Cycadese are found 

 standing erect where they grew, between rows of petrified fir 

 trees — an entire forest of pines, whose silicified roots are still 

 engaged in the mould in which they once flourished. 



" In the sands of the desert of Sahara, in Egypt, among the 

 mammalian bones of the Sub-Himalayas, and in the tertiary de- 

 posits of Virginia, associated with Cycadege, — drifted coniferous 

 wood and stems have been discovered." 



Fossil forests, silicified or calcareous, are found in Van Die- 

 men's Land and Australasia, standing erect to the height of sev- 

 eral feet, apparently in the places in which they grew, their roots 

 in dry sand, their petrified branches and stems being scattered 

 around, and the calcareous fossil trees have been burned into 

 lime for manuring the ground. 



A fossil pine forest exists on the eastern coast of Australia. 

 Stumps of silicified trees project from the ground like a forest 

 all whose trees have been cut down to the same level. At the 

 distance of some yards from the shore, there is a reef composed 

 of the petrified stumps of silicified trees projecting vertically in 

 rows above the water to the height generally of 3 or 4 feet, and 

 they are from 2 to 6 feet in diameter, and from 60 to 120 annual 

 rings were counted in some of them. In the vicinal hills, beds 

 of lignite occur, both above and below the fossil trees, and there 

 are several localities in Australia where similar phenomena are 

 presented. 



