337 



10 feet of reddish grey ill-sorted sandstone, but the latter 

 passes up into a second zone, 46 feet in thickness, of evenly- 

 bedded, red shales without coals, which is likewise cut off 

 by 9 feet of greenish grey coarse sandstone. The succeeding 

 third zone of regular strata includes an interesting and 

 characteristic coal group, where the coals are intimately 

 associated with thin beds of black bituminous fossiliferous 

 limestone. One of these coals has a floor of this dirty 

 limestone, and although the characters of the limestone 

 floor would not seem to furnish a good forest soil, yet 

 nevertheless, this limestone has in it abundant Stigmaria 

 with the attached radiating rootlets, again furnishing 

 evidence of the formation of this coal in situ. The upper 

 limestones in the roof carry crushed pelecypod shells of 

 genus Anthracomya associated with a tubicular annelid 

 shell, Spirorhis carhonarius Dawson, Leperditian ostracods 

 including Cythere and fish scales. This coal group like 

 many of the following provides few plant remains. Dawson 

 states however that the coal itself has Cordaites and 

 vascular bundles of ferns associated with vascular tissue 

 of Sigillariae. 



The succeeding 40 feet or so in this group is mainly grey 

 shales containing ironstone balls, and with subordinate 

 carbonaceous seams carrying a fauna similar to the above. 

 Three erect trees, poorly preserved, with coaly streaks 

 marking traces of the old roots, were observed here in the 

 summer of 1912, embedded in the shales but penetrating 

 the coarsely-bedded sandstone above. Several upright 

 Calamites were also noted arising from the base of the 

 sandstone bed. The succeeding strata may be similarly 

 marked out for convenience into zones as the contrast 

 between the regularly bedded strata of the coal and shale 

 zones and the irregular and cross-bedded sandstone zones 

 is usually quite marked. 



Erect trees — The number of erect trees to be seen in the 

 following rocks varies of course from year to year with the 

 seasonal wearing back of the cliffs. Their abundant 

 occurrence and position perpendicular to the bedding, is 

 alone good evidence that they are preserved in the position 

 of their growth, i.e., in situ. 



On close examination it will be seen that in almost every 

 case where the roots are absent, the trunks are abruptly 

 terminated downward either by a coal seam or by a thin 

 seam of carbonaceous shale. The cases indeed are very 



35063— 9A 



