Vegetables in Coal Measures. 213 



hy Messrs Voight and d'Aubuisson, in the coal measures in 

 the neighbourhood of Hainchen, and by Messrs Habel and 

 Noggerath, in the coal mines of the Saarbruck country. 



Four or five stems, from 20 to 30 centimetres [8 to 12 

 feet] in diameter, which M. d'Aubuisson calls trunks of 

 trees, occur at the first spot in a vertical position, in the 

 sandstone of the coal measures. All the circumstances 

 agree with those that accompany the vertical stems of St. 

 Etienne.* 



• The same facts have been observed in the environs of Saar- 

 bruck, in many coal mines, especially in that of Kohlwald, 

 where the trunks are 2 metres [about 6 feet 7 in.] high, and 

 6 or 8 decimetres [2 feet to 2 feet 8 in.] in diameter, and 

 in that of Wellesweiller ; the trunks in this last mine, re- 

 markable for their conical form, for their diameter of from 

 45 to 36 centimetres [18 to about 14f inches] for their 

 height, which is above 3 metres [about 10 feet] have lately 

 been described and figured by Dr. Noggerath.t 



These trunks, which cannot be referred to any known 

 vegetable, and which appear to diff'er from those of Hain- 

 chen and St. Etienne, traversed many 'beds of sandstone, 

 both schistose and sandy, and were situated between two 

 coal beds. 



M. de Charpentier cites a similar fact, which he had ob- 

 served in the sandstone of the coal measures to the N.E. of 

 Waldenbourg, in Lower Silesia. He states that, in 1807, 

 he there found a fossil tree in a vertical position, traversing 

 horizontal beds, and having its roots and some branches well 

 preserved, and changed into very small grained quartz, of a 

 greyish black colour, but whose structure Aas no longer 

 discernible ; the bark and small branches were changed 

 into coal. This trunk was 4 decimetres [16 inches] in 

 diameter, and there still remained a length of about 4 



* .See Journal des Mines, t. xxvii, p. 43, and especially d'Aubuisson, 

 Ceognosie, t. ii. p. 292. . 



+ Ueber aufrecht in gebergsgestein ingeschlofFene fossile aumstam^ 

 jne, &c. von Dr. Jacob Noggerath, Bonn, 1819. 



