165 

 A Pseudo Plant Fossil 



On the trip to Island Pond, in the Harriman State Park, Aug. 

 21, a collection of leaf impressions was found in a piece of rock, 

 which, if hastily interpreted, suggested startling conclusions. 

 The rock was a fragment of what had once been magnetite iron 

 ore, associated with the pre-Cambrian granites and gneisses of 

 the Hudson Highlands. Yet in it were several fine smooth, 

 clearly veined impressions of leaves, which looked quite like 

 modern species; one being obviously a print of a gray birch 

 leaf, another of Clethra alnifolia; others not so obviously identi- 

 fiable. This was astonishing on first sight; to find present day 

 leaf impressions in a pre-Cambrian rock. Further examination 

 yielded additional evidence which may support the interpreta- 

 tion here offered; an impression of some woven textile fabric, 

 like canvas; an impression as of a piece of sawn wood, and 

 most disillusioning of all, a lead shot, size B, such as used in 

 shot gun shells, welded into the rock. The puzzle was started 

 toward clearance, by old Manning Kyles, who has lived on 

 Island Pond for years, and who used to be a tool sharpener in 

 the iron mines operated in the vicinity up to about 50 or 60 

 years ago. Kyles said the fragment looked to him like a piece 

 of iron ore that had been roasted in a kiln, to drive off the sul- 

 phur, which was often done when the sulphur was too high to 

 make ore marketable. It was our conclusion that a quantity of 

 this ore was pulled out of a roasting kiln, cast on the ground, in 

 the presence of wet leaves and other rubbish, and the impres- 

 sions of the leaves, the canvas, the sawed lumber, and the actual 

 B shot, were cast into the hot rock. It seemed difficult to believe 

 that the leaves would remain unburnt long enough to make such 

 impressions in rock that had been nearly molten, but there they 

 were. 



An interesting discovery on this trip was a small colony of 

 Rhexia virginica, the Meadow Beauty, growing on a beaver 

 lodge on the south end of Island Pond. This plant is not com- 

 mon, in fact, I had never seen it before, in the Highlands, al- 

 though it is very common in the South Jersey Pine Barren 

 meadows. 



Raymond H. Torrey 



