UrUICIIT TREES. 
1 22 
of foliage, sinking with it into the deep, 
the waters again resume their dominion, the 
marine creatures live, die, and are en¬ 
tombed,— 
“ And thy majestic groves of olden time 
Perished with all their dwellers.” 
Then the platform is again raised, and the 
scene again slowly changed into the present 
appearance of things. 
About ten years since in cutting through 
the rocks of the coal series for the Bolton 
Railway, six miles north of Manchester, five 
fossil trees were found in a position vertical 
to the plane of the strata. The roots were 
imbedded in soft clay immediately above a 
thin bed of coal. Near the foot of one 
tree lay more than a bushel of clay nodules, 
each enclosing a cone of Lepidostrobus 
variabilis. The bark of the tree was con¬ 
verted to coal, averaging half an inch in 
thickness, and the interior of the stem was 
replaced by shale. The largest trunk mea¬ 
sured fifteen and a half feet at the base, 
seven and a half at the top, and the frag- 
