LEPIDODENDRON AND STIGMAKM:. 



199 



stems of Sigillarife and Lepidodendra, with stigmaria-roots attached ; and the same fact has been 

 noticed in the Picton coal, in Nova Scotia. The following figures and notes from Mr. Brown's 

 description of these interesting phenomena, will place the subject before the reader in a clear 

 point of view.' 



The main bed of coal is six feet in thickness, and is overlaid, as usual, by a I'oof of shale 

 abounding in foliage and fragments of branches. As the coal is dug out, large masses of the 

 shale fall in, and occasionally hollow spaces, called by the workmen pot-holes, are left in the roof; 

 the fallen masses being the roots and truncated stems of Sigillarise and other trees, which 

 separate at the parting formed by the coaly bark covering the roots, when the supporting coal 

 is removed. 



The following sketch represents one of the specimens of the base of a stem of a Lepidodendron, 

 with the roots (stigmarice) attached. This figure (1) shows the position of the tree above the bed 



Roof of shale full of leaves, &C. 



Main Coal Seam ; 6 feet thick. 



Under Clay, containing Stigmariae. 



Fig. 1. 



STEM OP LEPIDODENDRON WITH ROOTS. 



of main coal, with the inclination and length of two of the principal roots, so far as they could be 

 distinctly traced; and the following sketch (2) represents the trunk, with its branching roots, 

 constructed from careful measurements of the dimensions and position of each root, drawn on the 



spot. The stem at the part marked A, was encrusted with a coaly bark, covered by the usual 

 cicatrices of the Lepidodendra, and the roots at B, C, D, with a similar carbonaceous investment, 

 impressed with the characteristic pits or areolte of Stlgmarla. 



In the Instance of the upright stems of Sigillarise in the same coal-field, the roots were also 

 unequivocally Stigmarlge. Fig. 3, represents one of these erect stems, sixteen Inches high and 

 twelve inches in diameter at the top, which dropped from the roof of the bed after the coal had 



' " Description of an upright Lepidodendron with Stigmaria-roots in the roof of the Sydney Main Coal, in the Island 

 of Cape Breton. By Richard Brown, '£&({."— Geological Journal, 'So. 13, for June, 1S47, p. 46. 



