PORTLAND FOREST. 
105 
belief in the promises and threatenings of 
his word. 
The upper members of the Oolitic series, 
appear to be the Portland beds, which are 
irregularly dispersed, and not so extensive 
as the subsequent class. On drawing away 
the incumbent rock, to get at the building 
stone of the Island of Portland, a remarka¬ 
ble scene is disclosed. The layer of stone 
* now so profitably wrought, appears to have 
been surmounted by an ancient vegetable 
soil, in and upon which are a great number 
of silicified trunks of coniferous trees and 
plants of the Cycadian and Zamian genera. 
The stems of many of the trees are erect, 
the roots strike into the soil which is ac¬ 
cumulated round their bases, and their 
trunks extend into the superincumbent lime¬ 
stone. Between the larger trees the Cyca- 
deae are found evidently in the place where 
they grew. Here there is an unequivocal in¬ 
stance of the former existence of a tropical 
forest, growing in the place where the scan¬ 
tiest shrub now hardly flourishes in the soil 
immediately above. The facts are for ever 
decisive against all reasoning on the hypo- 
