§ 11. UPRIGHT TREES IN THE COAL MEASURES. 675 



cylinders filled with sand and clay, consisting of the bark in the state 

 of pure coal ; as in the fossil trees in the Isle of Wight (ante, p. 380). 

 A trunk, fourteen inches in diameter, had a coating of bark a quarter 

 of an inch thick. ISTo appearance of roots was perceptible ; and the 

 bottoms of the trunks touched a subjacent bed of coal." Beds of bitu- 

 minous shale and clay with Stigmarise, ten feet thick, are described 

 as overlying one series of upright trees, and upon these was another 

 bed of coal, one foot thick, that supported two trees, each eleven feet 

 high, and sixty yards apart ; they appeared to have grown on the coal* 



Mr. Lyell observed seventeen upright stems, at ten 

 distinct levels. The nature of the wood is not stated, 

 except that the trunks resembled those found erect at 

 Dixonfold, in England. f The surrounding strata abound in 

 Sigillarias, Stigmariae, and the other usual vegetables of the 

 European coal strata. At Pictou, a hundred miles to the 

 eastward of the Minudie coal measures, the same group of 

 deposits occurs, and yields a large supply of coal. In this 

 locality there is a row of upright Catamites, in sandstone, 

 all terminating downwards at the same level, where the 

 sandstone joins a layer of coarse grey limestone with 

 pebbles. The tops of the Calamites are broken off at 

 different heights, where the grit becomes coarser. The bed 

 of erect Calamites at St. Etienne (ante, p. 673) is regarded by 

 Mr. Lyell as analogous : and he considers both localities as 

 affording unequivocal proof of fossil trees occupying the 

 ground on which they originally grew. J 



To account for the successive stages of these erect trees, 

 on the supposition that the trunks are now standing in 

 their original position, we must suppose periodical eleva- 

 tions and subsidences of the land to have taken place. 

 " It by no means follows," observes Mr. Lyell, " that a sea 

 four or five miles deep was filled up with sand and sediments. 

 On the contrary, repeated subsidences, such as are required 



* See Mr. Lyell's Section of the Cliffs of the South Joggins, near 

 Minudie, Nova Scotia. Travels in America, vol. ii. p. 180, fig. 21. 

 f Geol. Trans, vol. iii. p. 139. $ Travels in America, p. 195. 

 VOL. II. , Y Y 



