358 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 21, 



bifurcate twice in the quarter i, m, which is the only complete por- 

 tion of the fossil. If the ramifications in the other three quarters 

 were as regular as in i, 9n, which I have every reason to suppose 

 was the case, having found a similar arrangement in two other trees 

 of the same species, we should have thirty-two roots within a circle of 

 eighteen inches diameter. 



There are four large tap roots in each quarter of the stump, as shown 

 in fig. 7, and about five inches beyond these a set of smaller tap roots 

 striking perpendicularly downwards from the horizontal roots, making 

 forty-eight in all, viz. sixteen in the inner and thirty- two in the outer 

 set ; and, what is a still more remarkable feature in this singular 

 fossil, there are exactly thirty-two double rows of leaf-scars on the 

 circumference of the trunk. This curious correspondence in the 

 numbers of the roots and vertical rows of leaf-scars, surely cannot be 

 accidental. I am not aware that any similar correspondence has ever 

 been observed either in recent or fossil plants. The inner set of tap 

 roots vary from two to two and a half inches in length ; the diameter 

 at their junction with the base of the trunk being about two inches, 

 as shown in fig. 8, which is one-half the natural size. The outer set 

 are much smaller, being about one inch in diameter at their junction 

 with the horizontal roots, and from one to one and a half inch in 

 length. Very few of either set are strictly conical, although they 

 probably were originally of that shape ; some are squeezed into an 

 elliptical, others into a triangular form ; all have been wrinkled hori- 

 zontally, as shown in fig. 8, by the shrinkage due to vertical compres- 

 sion. A thick tuft of broad flattened 

 rootlets radiates from the termina- -'^ig* °* 



tions of the tap roots, and a few in- 

 distinct areolae are \^sible on their 

 sides ; the length of these rootlets 

 does not appear to exceed three or 

 four inches, their width being one- 

 fourth of an inch ; a raised black line 

 runs down the middle of each, similar 

 to that observed in the rootlets of 

 Stigmariae. These short thick tap 

 roots were evidently adapted only to 

 a soft wet soil, such as we may easily conceive was the nature of 

 the first layer of mud deposited upon a bed of peat, which had 

 settled down slightly below the level of the water. 



We may infer also, from the existence of a layer of shale without 

 fossil plants, immediately over the coal, that the prostrate stems and 

 leaves which occur in such large quantities in the next superincum- 

 bent bed, fell from trees growing upon the spot, and were entombed 

 in layers of mud held in suspension in water, which at short intervals 

 inundated the low marshy ground on which they grew ; for had the 

 plants been drifted from a distance, we should find them in the first 

 layer of shale as well as in those higher up. 



Although the main coal is generally overlaid by shale, yet occasion- 

 ally the shale thins out, and the thick sandstone, which is the next 



