179 
THE STEMS AND liOOTS OF FOSSIL TREES IN THE LOWER 
COAL MEASURES, AT WADSLEY, NEAR SHEFFIELD. BY 
J. W. DAVIS, ESQ. 
The fossil plants represented in tlie photograph issued 
with the volume of Proceedings for 1876, occur in a bed of 
dark, ferruginous shale, exposed in excavating a site rendered 
necessary for the extension of the South Yorkshire Lunatic 
Asylum, at Wadsley. The section exposed consists of, — 
ft. in. 
Raggy Shale, with thin Sandstones . . . . GO 
Sandstone inclined to split into Flags . . 2 0 
Dark Shale 20 0 
The roots, which in each case bifurcate, grew in the lower 
bed of shale. They are five or six feet in length, and appear 
to be Stigmaria, but the surface markings are not well pre- 
served. The trees evidently grew where they are now 
situated, and afterwards the stems appear to have decayed to 
the level of the surface of the muddy- shale in which they 
are imbedded, leaving only the roots to become fossil. The 
shale was then evenly covered by the stratum of sandstone, 
as shown in the photograph. The section is represented 
about jL. natural size, or on a scale of one inch to one foot. 
During former excavations, at the same place, ten or a 
dozen similar stumps of trees were discovered, in an area fifty 
yards in length. Three or four of the best examples have 
been preserved, and are protected from the disintegrating 
influences of frost and rain by wooden sheds. Further par- 
ticulars respecting these may be found in a paper read to the 
Geological Society, at London, by H. C. Sorby, Esq., F.RS., 
F.Gr.S., &c., and published in the Quarterly Journal of that 
Society for August, 1875. 
The thanks of the Society are due to the Directors of the 
Asylum, and more especially to Dr. Mitchell, for their kind- 
ness in allowing the specimen to be photographed, and for 
the care taken in exposing it and preserving it from injury. 
