108 Fossil Vescetabhs 



'to' 



Art. XIV. — Fossil Vegetables. 



Mr. Witham of Lartington, Yorkshire, England, (also of Edinburgh) 

 has favored the scientific world with two very interesting memoirs on 

 fossil vegetables. They evince great skill and care in developing the 

 facts, and in illustrating them by the most beautiful colored sections, 

 exhibiting the internal vegetable structure, which he has developed by 

 a new method of examination by the microscope. 



By comparing the fossil specimens with those of recent vegetables, 

 which also he has examined by the microscope, he thinks he can de- 

 tect the true character and species of the fossil plant. Among many 

 others, he describes a fossil tree, discovered in 1826 in a quarry 

 near Edinburgh, which is a most curious and interesting fragment of 

 an earlier world. It was found one hundred and thirty-six feet below 

 the surface, in a horizontal position, nearly parallel with the stratum 

 of sandstone in which it was imbedded, ;ind measured thirty-six feet 

 in height, and three feet in diameter at its base. This remnant of 

 primitive vegetation appears to have been a conifera, and from com- 

 paring the structure with the Norway Fir, and the Yew-tree, the re- 

 semblance is surprising, and if not identical, may confidently be refer- 

 red to that family. The cells and layersof the woody fibre are evident, 

 although foreign substances have, by percolation, taken possession of the 

 decaying part of the plant. In some parts, masses of crystals or other 

 mineral substances in patches and irregular streaks, have displaced 

 the vegetable, but the whole is sufficiently entire to indicate its re- 

 semblance to the living tree. The bark or rind was of a coally sub- 

 stance. 



Another fossil stem has been, recently discovered in the quarry of 

 Craigleith near Edinburgh, whose geological position is in the moun- 

 tain limestone group, and considerably below the great coal basins of 

 the Lothians. Its elevation is seventy-five feet above the level of the 

 sea and its roots were at the bottom of the quarry. The length of 

 the stem was forty-seven feet — a large, branchless trunk — in some 

 parts, much flattened so as to afford an elliptical section. Its largest 

 diameter is five feet by two, and its smallest, one foot and seven 

 inches by one foot and four inches. It is obvious that many feet are 

 gone from the top, whose spreading branches waved in the wind, 

 ages ago, and probably at the height of sixty feet. The super- 

 incumbent mass of rock appears to have been an hundred feet 



