374 



PAEKFIELD COLLIEEY. 



[Ch. XXIV. 



Ground-plan of a fossil forest, Parkfield Colliery, near 

 Wolverhampton, showing the position of 73 trees in 

 a quarter of an acre.* 



It has been remarked, that if, instead of working in the dark, the 

 miner was accustomed to remove the upper covering of rock from each 

 seam of coal, and to ex- 

 pose to the day the soils 

 on which ancient forests 

 grew, the evidence of 

 their former growth 

 would be obvious. Thus 

 in South Staffordshire a 

 seam of coal was laid 

 bare in the year 1844, in 

 what is called an open 

 work at Parkfield Col- 

 liery, near Wolverhamp- 

 ton. In the space of 

 about a quarter of an 

 acre the stumps of no less 

 than 73 trees with their 

 roots attached appeared, 

 as shown in the annexed plan (fig. 489), some of them more than 8 feet 

 in circumference. The trunks broken off close to the root, were lying 

 prostrate in every direction, often crossing each other. One of them meas- 

 ured 15, another 30 feet in length, and others less. They were invariably 

 flattened to the thickness of one or two inches, and converted into coal. 

 Their roots formed part of a stratum of coal 10 inches thick, which rested 

 on a layer of clay 2 inches thick, below which was a second forest, resting 

 on a 2-foot seam of coal. Five feet below this again was a third forest 

 with large stumps of Lepidodendra, Calamites, and other trees. 



In the account given, in 1821, by M.Alex. Brongniartf of the coal-mine 

 of Treuil, at St. Etienne, near Lyons, he states, that distinct horizontal strata 

 of micaceous sandstone are traversed by vertical trunks of monocotyledonous 

 vegetables, resembling bamboos or large Equiseta (fig. 490). Since the con- 

 solidation of the stone, there has been here and there a sliding movement, 

 which has broken the continuity of the stems, throwing the upper parts of 

 them on one side, so that they are often not continuous with the lower. 



From these appearances it was inferred that we have here the monu- 

 ments of a submerged forest. I formerly objected to this conclusion, 

 suggesting that, in that case, all the roots ought to have been found at 

 one and the same level, and not scattered irregularly through the mass. 

 I also imagined that the soil to which the roots were attached should 

 have been different from the sandstone in which the trunks are inclosed. 

 Having, however, seen calamites near Pictou, in Nova Scotia, buried at 

 various heights in sandstone and in similar erect attitudes, I have now 

 little doubt that M. Brongniart's view was correct. These plants seem 

 to have grown on a sandy soil, liable to be flooded from time to time. 



* Messrs. Beckett arid Ick. Proceed. GeoL Soc. vol. iv. p. 287. 

 \ Annates des Mines, 1821. 



