440 



red sandstone series, which consists of indurated sandstone, alterna- 

 ting with beds of conglomerate, chiefly made up of sand and of peb- 

 bles of quartzite and compact forms of trap. 



In the churchyard of Allesley Dr. Buckland found an angular frag- 

 ment of similar silicified wood which had been fresh cast up from the 

 bottom of a grave, sunk to an unusual depth in the red sandstone ; 

 and in making a road from Allesley towards Coventry another large 

 tree was discovered a short lime ago, and the greater part of it used 

 in forming the foundation of the road. On comparing the fragments 

 found in the gravel with the tree in Mr. Gibson's garden, which is 

 carefully preserved in its matrix. Dr. Buckland found so perfect an 

 identity in mineral character as to leave no doubt that the fragments 

 in the surface gravel had been derived from denuded beds of the new 

 red sandstone. 



A description was then given of the mineralized condition of the wood, 

 and its organic structure. On the surface of many of the specimens 

 from the gravel, is a multitude of small spherical cavities, each of which 

 was once filled with a minute round concretion of oxide of iron or im- 

 perfect jasper 5 and innumerable specks formed by these concretions 

 pervading the interior of the specimens, appear to have been formed 

 in a manner analogous to that which produced the eye agates in the An- 

 tigua wood. The tree in Mr. Gibson's garden, and many ofthe larger 

 fragments found in the gravel, abound with minute longitudinal 

 apertures resembling those in shrunk and shaken timber; many of 

 these are filled with red oxide of iron, or lined with beautiful crystals 

 of dark-coloured quartz. In two specimens Dr. Buckland noticed lon- 

 gitudinal holes about ^th of an inch in diameter, which had apparent- 

 ly been perforated by the larvae of some insect. In the large collection 

 formed by Mr. Bree, the author sought in vain for examples of the 

 petrified palms, psarolites and helmintolites described by Cotta and 

 Sprengel as found in Saxony, in beds considered to be the equivalents 

 ofthe new red sandstone of England ; all the Allesley specimens are 

 either referrible to decided coniferse, which have distinct concentric 

 lines of growth, or exhibit a compact structure in which neither large 

 vascular tubes nor concentric lines of growth are visible. 



A paper entitled " Further notice on a partially petrified piece of 

 wood from an ancient Roman aqueduct at Eilsen, in the Principality 

 of Lippe-Buckeberg," by Charles Stokes, Esq., F.G.S., was next 

 read. 



Since his former communication on this subject, the author has been 

 shown by Mr. Robert Brown a specimen from the same partially 

 petrified piece of wood ; and Mr. Brown has pointed out to him, in 

 its longitudinal section, that the petrified portions are spindle-shaped 

 bodies, about two inches in length, in some instances completely in- 

 closed within and surrounded bv the unchanged wood, and are not, 

 therefore, as formerly conjectured by the author, connected by such 

 an externa! supply of carbonate of lime to particular points as might 

 have been derived from stalactites formed in the building. 



The author also stated that Mr. Brown had called his attention to 



