Eikins and Wieland — On Devonian Wood. 65 



Art. YI. — Cordaitean Wood from the Indiana Black 

 Shale ; by Marion G. Elklns and G. R. Wieland. With 

 Plates I and II. 



I. Illustration and Description (by Miss Eikins). 



Early in the year 1911, Dr. G. R. Wieland handed me for 

 description three sections of Cordaitean wood, which he had 

 prepared from Yale Museum material, and in addition, certain 

 of his notes concerning these sections and four photomicro- 

 graphs, which accompany this paper. In regard to this material, 

 Dr. Wieland says : 



"I noticed among some unstudied examples of silicified wood in 

 the Yale collections a medium sized hand specimen from Lexing- 

 ton, Scott County, Indiana, which had evidently been acquired 

 many years ago from Mr. J. H. Thompson of Hanover. Later, on 

 inquiry, Dr. Edward M. Kindle, who is thoroughly familiar with 

 the Indiana localities and stratigraphy, assured me that the 

 specimen must certainly be from the Black Shales of the Upper 

 Indiana Devonian, which are approximately of the same age as 

 the Genesee Shales of New York. He also stated that sections of 

 trunks, a foot or more in diameter, had at various times been 

 noted in the Black Shales." 



A further description of this locality is found in the Sixth 

 Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Indiana, 1874 : 



" Resting on the black shale are found large fossil trees. Some 

 of these specimens are of great size ; all are silicified. The fossil 

 tree exhumed from the black shale by J. Richardson and myself 

 (W. W. Borden) on the land of E. B. Gurnsey near Henryville, 

 Clarke County, and exhibited at the Indianapolis Exposition of 

 1873, measured over sixteen feet in length and two feet in dia- 

 meter, and had a jointed structure which is a characteristic feature 

 of all these fossil trees. Another large specimen of tree, measur- 

 ing nineteen feet in length and three feet in the broadest part, 

 being somewhat flattened, was taken from the black shale a short 

 distance north of Yienna by James Powers of Lexington and 

 exhibited at the Indianapolis Exposition of 1874. This fossil 

 wood is very closely associated with the black shale, and large 

 specimens are found in almost every outcrop on the headwaters 

 of Silver Creek in Clarke County. I have never yet met with a 

 specimen above the summit of the black shale. A stump of one 

 of these fossil trees is to be seen in Finley Township." 



The material sectioned by Dr. Wieland without doubt came 

 from this locality, but it is not known whether the Yale hand 

 specimen is a section of one of the trunks mentioned in the 

 Indiana Report or not. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 223.— July, 1914. 

 5 



