206 SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON, BART., ON FOSSIL TREES 
respects it is the most interesting of all the Craigleith fossils——7. To the fore- 
going list must be added a seventh, believed by the quarrymen to be a portion 
of a branch. It was found not far from the great stem, No. 5, but quite un- 
connected. It was originally 8 feet long ; but when I first saw it in possession 
of the clerk of works, only 18 inches remained of its upper end. This is 5} 
inches across where broadest, and 44 inches where narrowest. As will be 
shown presently, it is not really a branch complete in its circumference, but a 
small, longitudinally-split section of a large branch, or possibly of a stem. 
Mr Wirnam has alluded also, partly in his paper in the Royal Society’s 
Transactions, and partly in that read to the Northumberland Natural History 
Society, to “a fragment of a third fossil stem with a branch,” found after he 
had begun to write his paper, and to another portion having been got very near 
the last in August 1831. Of the former he has given no farther account than 
by describing and figuring a slice of a branch, which was a mere twig about an 
inch in diameter, and which showed concentric annual rings distinctly. Of the 
other he merely says that a slice 4 inches by 4 shows concentric zones 
(“ Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. of Northumberland,” 1831, pp. 151, 152.) My 
attention has likewise been directed to several fragments of a large Craig- 
leith fossil, preserved at the villa of Duncliffe, Murrayfield, by Mr Bar.pon, 
who acquired them in 1866. If put together, these fragments would form a 
stem about 12 feet in length ; and two of them, which are complete columnar 
sections, nearly round, measure 8 feet in girth. They are possibly the upper- 
most portions of No. 5, when it was temporarily uncovered a number of years — 
ago. At least I have been unable to trace any other large fossil having been 
discovered in the quarry except the six whose history I have given above; and 
all but the top of No, 5 have been accounted for. Mr BarLpon never saw the 
fragments in his possession until they had been wrenched from their bed and 
scattered around it. 
It is a matter of interest, not unconnected with the present inquiry, that 
during the time when the Craigleith fossils were brought to light, two others 
were discovered in the sandstone quarry of Granton, situated on the shore of 
our Firth two miles northward. This quarry, which was worked to a great 
extent, and to the depth of 80 feet, for the adjoining pier and harbour of 
Granton, produced a fine quality of sandstone, extremely like that of Craig- 
leith. Much was added to this resemblance by the discovery of two large fossil 
trees, which presented all the characters of the Craigleith fossils. They were 
displayed in 1839, and were the subject of great interest to geologists at the 
second Edinburgh meeting of the British Association for Science in 1852. 
There is extant a lithographed sketch of them, taken from a camera-lucida 
drawing by the late Mr Roperr ALLAN in that year; and I have obtained 
specimens of one of the fossils for examination through the kindness both of Dr 

