722 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. 



Lect. VII. 



Mr. Binney discovered a 

 which exhibited on its 



Lign. 163. — Lepidodendron 

 Sternbergii. 



A fossil tree, thirteen and a half feet 

 wide at the base, and thirty-nine 

 feet high. 



This figure, from the Fossil Flora 

 of Great Britain, (PI. CCIII.) 

 represents a specimen discovered 

 in the Bensham coal seam, in the 

 Jarrow coal-field. 



magnificent specimen of Sigillaria, 

 stem the respective characters of 

 three supposed species (S. pachy- 

 derma, reniformis, and o?*ganum), 

 and had stigm aria-roots, which 

 were traced twenty feet.* 



In the Sydney coal-field, at Cape 

 Breton, several upright stems of 

 Sigillarise, having roots that are 

 undoubted stigmariae, have been 

 discovered; and in the Pictou 

 coal, in Nova Scotia, the same 

 fact has been noticed, and com- 

 municated to the Geological So- 

 ciety of London. 



As there is considerable variety 

 in the form and disposition of the 

 tubercles of the Stigmariae, it is 

 probable that some of them may 

 be the roots of other trees of the 

 carboniferous deposits, with the 

 stems of which they are associ- 

 ated.f 



38. Lepidodendron. — This is 

 a tribe of plants which has largely 

 contributed to the formation 

 of the coal-strata, and whose 

 remains rival in number and mag- 

 nitude the Calamites and Sigil- 

 lariae. The name, which signifies 



* Over the door of the room contain- 

 ing the fossil vegetables in the British 

 Museum, there is a Stigmaria twenty-six 

 feet long, with numerous rootlets. 



f Medals of Creation, p. 142. 



