lO NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



trees. These stumps stood all on the same level in the rocks and 

 their rootlets ran down into the original mud in which they had 

 grown, now turned into a dark or greenish shale. All had been 

 cut off by some ancient flood at about 3 feet above the base; some 

 w^ere large and some smaller, the largest having a diameter in the 

 shaft of 2 feet or more with broad expanding root-base like a flat- 

 tened turnip. Thus was brought to light the standing remains of 

 the most ancient forest growth known in the geological records in 

 any part of the world. Ten of these tree stumps were taken out 

 from their ancient forest, all at the same level in the rocks, and 

 most of them were brought to the State Museum, where they have 

 long constituted one of the remarkable exhibits of the vanished 

 flora of the State. 



The effort made this year to relocate this primeval forest of the 

 Devonian Period or to find some additional evidence of its extent, 

 has proved successful. The old locality is deeply covered and the 

 rocks of that level which carried these trees do not come to the sur- 

 face again in the vicinity. But the work has been attended with 

 unexpected results in finding the stumps of other trees of the same 

 sort at a level 60 feet higher in the rock beds, giving evidence that 

 the forest growth had reappeared in the same region at a later stage 

 in Devonian history. 



The rediscovery of these primitive "ferns" is of very great inter- 

 est from a scientific point of view. These trees are most nearly com- 

 parable to the tree ferns of existing tropical forests but no botanist 

 would be content with this comparison, as they have a frutification 

 quite unlike the spore-cases of the ferns, and the leaves were appar- 

 ently narrow and straplike, branching simply and rarely and termi- 

 nating in twin fruit cases. If the diameter of the trunks is carried 

 upward in a tapering slope these trees must have reached a very 

 considerable height of 20 to 30 feet, but it is possible that the trunks 

 broke up not so far above their base into a shrubby or bushy cap. 

 Their real nature is still a problem for the student of fossil plants. 

 This will be disclosed in time but whatever the nature of this primi- 

 tive forest growth may prove to be, they certainly afford an index 

 to the geography of the western Catskills and the Schoharie valley 

 during the late Devonian Period to which they belong. We have 

 said that the tree stumps were found in places where they grew, that 

 the shale under them are the muds in which they were rooted and 

 that they are preserved at at least two levels in the rocks, one 60 feet 

 above the other. Not far under the lowest forest the rocks carry 

 true marine fossils. Tangled in the roots of the lower trees were 

 found the remains of some brackish water animals. These facts of 



