454 DR. E. A. NEWELL ARBER ON [Oct. I9I3, 



EXPLANATION OF PLATES XLIII & XLIV. 



Plate XLIII. 



Fig. 1. Petrified log embedded in concretionary ballstone (3 feet in diameter) 

 of ferruginous calcareous sandstone, at Witley Colliery, Halesowen. 

 The vertical diameter of the log is 10 inches ; the entire circumference 

 is invested with a coaly rind. 

 2. Petrified log in Witley Colliery railway-cutting. Exposed length = 

 6 feet; vertical diameter = 16 inches. The entire circumference is 

 invested with a coaly rind. 



Plate XLIV. 



Geological map of the Halesowen Sandstone area of the South Stafford- 

 shire Coalfield, on the scale of 3 inches to the mile, or 1 : 21, 120. 



VIII. Appendix. 



On the Structure of Badoxylon kayi, sp.. nov., from the 

 Halesowen Sandstone at Witley (Worcestershire). By 

 E. A. Newell Arber, M.A., Sc.D., K.G.S., Demonstrator in 

 Paleobotany in the University of Cambridge. 



During the summer of 1912 I had an opportunity, thanks to 

 the kindness of my friend, Mr. Henry Kay, of inspecting the 

 remarkable series of petrified trunks discovered by him in situ in 

 the Halesowen Sandstones, exposed in a mineral railway- cutting 

 at Witley Colliery in the Lutley Valley, near Halesowen (Worcester- 

 shire). The sandstones also contain a great abundance of plant- 

 fragments, associated with the above-mentioned stems, among these 

 being pith-casts of Catamites suchoivi Brongn., C. varians Sternb., 

 and Cordait.es (Artisia) approximatus Brongn., as also impressions of 

 the stems of Lepidodendron sp. Impressions of many other obscure 

 and fragmentary portions of bark or of the woody tissues of stems 

 or branches also occur, but the coarse nature of the sandy matrix 

 renders them too indistinct to warrant determination. 



The large trunks of the trees, described in Mr. Kay's paper, have 

 in some cases a diameter of 40 centimetres. The woody tissues 

 are alone preserved. The bark and other more external tissues are 

 either absent, or represented only by a thin film ofcoal. So far as 

 I could judge from an examination of the specimens in situ, the 

 pith appears to have been of very small diameter, the centre of the 

 trunk consisting of a very narrow zone of softer and less compact 

 material. Certainly no indication could be found of the presence 

 of any large pith, or of a. pith-cast similar to the Artisia ( = Stern- 

 berqia) pith-casts of Cordaites. A further examination of the 

 polished surfaces of portions of these trunks confirms this conclusion. 

 Such specimens exhibit no indications of .annual rings of growth. 

 The wood is' very compact, and shows a large number of irregular, 

 sometimes branched cracks filled with calcite. 



The preservation, in calcite, of the structure of the wood is 

 extremely good, and will bear comparison with much of the ' coal- 



