124 
ancient forests. 
water. The largest stem was five feet six 
inches in circumference.”* 
Besides trees thus found attached to roots, 
there are numerous cases of the occurrence 
of large trunks broken at each end, lying in¬ 
clined in all directions in thick beds of sand¬ 
stone ; thus occurred the coniferous trees in 
Craigleith Quarry and New Haven near 
Edinburgh, telling us that they were up- 
torn from their native soil, and drifted by 
a muddy stream to their present resting 
place. 
It would be easy to multiply to a great 
extent the relation of instances of the oc¬ 
curence of trees in the coal strata, appa¬ 
rently where they once grew. The following 
case occurs in the Staffordshire coal field: 
At Parkfield Colliery one and a half miles 
w^est of Bilston, and at about the same dis¬ 
tance south of Wolverhampton, there is a 
fine outcrop of this bottom Coal, which is 
now being got in open work; in one part 
the overlying fire-clay has been removed, 
and the surface of the coal exposed, over 
* Memoirs of Ordiuance Survey, Vol 1, p. 18 4. 
