.■pOSSIIi FORESTS. 257 



prostrate and plainly visible, one hundred or more 

 petrified trunks and stumps of trees, the majority, 

 if not the -whole of them, lying in one direction ; 

 and besides these there were many more (all of 

 them also petrified) which, covering a large area 

 had been simply outlined or partially excavated 

 from the earth and volcanic matter in which they 

 had become imbedded — ^for as yet they had only 

 been traced, the work of excavation not having 

 proceeded far ' (this was in 1879). 'Judging by 

 the dimensions of some of the more exposed 

 trimks, these trees must, indeed, have been verit- 

 able monsters. One of them, which has been 

 appropriately designated " the Pride of the 

 Forest," measured eleven feet across the stump, 

 and thirty feet up the trunk the diameter was 

 seven feet. The tree reveals its own growth, for 

 by the grain of the wood its age has been 

 traced to 1100 years — ^that is, of course, its age 

 before it became thrown and turned into stone. 

 This great fellow lay thoroughly exposed, and, 

 apart from its size, was a geological curiosity 

 in the fact of its having an almost perfect petri-' 

 fied bark ; and a portion of its wood was not. only 



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