Vol. 69.] SERIES OF THE SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE COALFIELD. 453' 



VII. The Petrified Wood at Witley. 



My attention was directed, some two years ago, by Mr. P. Jew, to 

 some remarkable fossil wood found in the cutting along the mineral 

 railway to Witley Colliery. When first seen, the lower slopes of 

 the cutting appeared to be strewn with chips aud splinters of 

 wood. These were at length traced to some score of logs and 

 other pieces embedded in the sandstone cliffs, aud projecting at 

 various angles from both sides of the exposure. These are all found 

 in a prostrate position, and are clearly overlain and surrounded 

 by undisturbed sandstone (PI. XLIII). 



The majority of the logs appear to have suffered attrition before 

 coming to rest, and, judging from their appearance, also while 

 undergoing petrifaction. Two logs, however, show the entire 

 circumference, being surrounded by a quarter of an inch of bright 

 brittle coal. One of these, exposed in transverse section only, is 

 shown in PI. XLIII, fig. 1. It is embedded in a large concretionary 

 ballstone of dark, ferruginous, but highly calcareous sand, and 

 measures 10 and 12 inches respectively in vertical and horizontal 

 diameters. The second is shown in fig. 2 of the same plate. It 

 has been exposed for a length of 6 feet, and it has a diameter of 

 16 or 17 inches. The cavity seen at the right-hand end of the log 

 supplied a block measuring 1 cubic foot, which has been cut and 

 polished so as to show the nature of the tissues. Prom this log, 

 branch-like impressions, which, however, have lost the woody fibre, 

 ramify through the sandstones to a distance of 10 or 12 feet. 

 Well-preserved pith-casts of Catamites and other plant-remains have 

 been found in actual contact with the log, and are described by 

 Dr. Arber in the appendix (pp. 454 et seqq.). 



My own work in connexion with the petrified wood consists in 

 the selection and preparation of specimens, the tracing of the logs 

 in situ, and the establishment of their Upper Carboniferous age. 

 The age of the petrifactions is indicated by the following facts : — 



The logs are buried naturally in a prostrate position. They 

 have manifestly drifted into their present resting-place at the 

 same time as the sediments which now form the sandstone rocks. 

 That resting-place is in thickly-bedded, undisturbed, stratified sand- 

 stones of Upper Carboniferous age, in all respects like those of the 

 surrounding country. The cutting is almost at the summit of a 

 high natural bank, at the foot of which the Lutley Brook falls in a 

 series of miniature cascades towards the Pciver Stour. Its height 

 above O.D. is 350 feet, and the section occurs in the very heart of 

 a district which has suffered pronounced denudation in post-Glacial 

 time, inasmuch as the nearest Glacial drift occurs on the sides of 

 the Clent, Prankley, Quinton, and Blackheath Hills at levels never 

 below 560 feet. 



The petrifying material is calcite, which occurs in crystalline 

 form in the rock-crevices, and also ramifies in veins through the 

 mass of the logs. 



