MR. S. A. ADAMSON, F.G.S., 
ON 
“ RECENT DISCOVERIES 
OF 
mHIS is a brief review of the discoveries of the fossil trees wbicli 
-L have during: the past year directed so much attention to the 
lower coal measures of Yorkshire. The first example was discovered 
by Messrs. Murgatroyd and Sons in their large quarry at Fall Top, 
Clayton, near Bradford, and these gentlemen deserve the highest 
praise from all geologists for the care used in revealing this magnifi¬ 
cent specimen. Messrs. Murgatroyd (as they told the writer) have 
acquired a taste for geology by reading the geological paragraphs 
which appear from time to time in the Leeds Mercury Weekly Supple¬ 
ment, and hence they are now on the alert for objects of this nature, 
which formerly had no value whatever in their eyes. This quarry is 
not far from the edge of a bold escarpment overlooking- the Thornton 
Valley, and the famous bed of stone, which we in this part know so 
well as the Elland flagstone, is worked here for landings, flags, &c. 
In the neighbourhood of Queensbury and Clayton, the beds, in 
descending order, are the Better bed coal, then some thirty feet of 
irregularly bedded and ragged sandstone, then follows some forty feet 
of shale, and finally the lower flagstone, which is of great thickness. 
It was in the measures above the lower flagstone, and at a distance of 
about twelve feet from the surface, that this fossil tree was discovered. 
The stump of the tree was embedded in a soft sandy shale, locally 
termed “yellow loam,” the roots resting on a bed of soft blue shale. 
The upper sandstones and shales just referred to are of little commercial 
value, the rag being used for rough walling, the remainder being 
merely rubbish to fill up other excavations. Thus in order to arrive 
