654 



HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



result of whatever circumstances succeeded ; but it is common to find great 

 numbers of fragments or trunks of trees and ferns in the first stratum. The 

 shaly beds often contain the ancient ferns, spread out between the layers 

 with all the perfection they have in an herbarium, and so abundant that, 



1028. 



Section of Coal-measures at the Joggins, Nova Scotia (with erect stumps and stems, a, b, c, d, in the 

 sandstone, and rootlets in the underclays). Dawson. 



however thin the shale be split, it opens to view new impressions of 

 plants. In the sandstone layers, broken trunks of trees sometimes lie 

 scattered through the beds. Some of the logs in the Ohio Coal-measures, 

 described by Dr. Hildreth, are 50 to 60 feet long, and three in diameter. At 

 Carbondale, in Pennsylvania, a forest of Calaniites, or tree-rushes, was cut 

 through in opening an inclined tunnel through sandstone to the underlying 

 coal-bed, and the trunks, or rather their fragments, were so numerous that 

 they were used as a foundation for a tramway for transporting the coal out 

 of the mine. In the walls crowds of other stems of the old jungle were left. 

 Lesquereux refers the species of Calaniites to G. Suckovi and C. approxi- 

 matus. He also states that in the roof-shale of the coal-bed at Carbondale, 

 Pa., there was found an impression of the bark of a Lepidodendron, two feet 

 wide and seventy -jive feet long. Andrews mentions that thousands of the 

 trunks of the Fern, Pecopteris arhorescens Schloth., are found in the sliale over 

 the Pomeroy coal-bed; and at one place the trunk of a Sigillaria was traced 

 by him for more than 40 feet. In Kentucky, at Paintsville, the stony bottom 

 of the river is an irregular mosaic work made of cross-sections of trunks 

 of Sigillaria which stand crowded together in the position of growth 

 (Lesquereux). One trunk is 22 inches across, showing that the region was 

 the site of a forest. 



Such facts are common. These facts are enough to prove the vegetable 

 origin of coal. But Ferns, Lepidodendra, and other plant-remains are 

 often spread out in perfection within the coal-beds, and sometimes in the 

 solid masses of anthracite. They occur also in the textareless camiel coal, 

 as at Breckenridge, Ky., where the coal " is marked through its whole mass 

 by stems and leaves of Stigmaria and Lepidodendron rendered distinct by 

 infiltration of sulphuret of iron" (Lesquereux). Further, the coal is often 

 penetrated with the tissues and spores of the plants. Even the solid anthra- 



