and Coniferæ. Together with these, there occur other groups of Plants unknown in modern vegetation, and of which the duration seems to have been limited to the Epochs of the Transition Period. Among the largest and tallest of these unknown forms of Plants, we find colossal Trunks of many species, which M. Ad. Brongniart has designated by the name of Sigillaria. These are dispersed throughout the sandstones and shales that accompany the Coal, and can occasionally be detected in the Coal itself, to the substance of which they have largely contributed by their remains. They are sometimes seen in an erect position, where views of the strata are afforded by cliffs on the sea shore, or by inland sections of quarries, banks of rivers, &c.[1]
- ↑ On the coast of Northumberland, at Creswell hall, and Newbiggin, near Morpeth, many stems of Sigillaria may be seen, standing erect at right angles to the planes of alternating strata of shale and sand-stone; they vary from ten to twenty feet in height, and from one to three feet in diameter, and are usually truncated at their upper end; many terminate downwards in a bulb-shaped enlargement, near the commencement of the roots, but no roots remain attached to any of them. Mr. W. C. Trevelyan counted twenty portions of such Trees, within the length of half a mile; all but four or five of these were upright; the bark, which was seen when they were first uncovered, but soon fell off, was about half an inch in thickness, and entirely converted into coal. Mr. Trevelyan observed four varieties of these stems, and engraved a sketch of one of them in 1816, which is copied in Count Sternberg's Table 7. fig. 5.
In September, 1834, I saw in one of the Coal Mines of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Elsecar, near Rotherham, many large Trunks of Sigillaria, in the sides of a gallery by which you walk into the mine, from the outcrop of a bed of Coal about six feet thick. These stems were inclined in all directions, and some of them nearly vertical. The interior of those whose inclination exceeded 45° was filled with an indurated mixture of clay and sand; the lower extremity/ of several rested on the upper surface of the bed of Coal. None had any traces of Roots, :nor could any one of them have grown in its present place.
M. Alex. Bronguiart has engraved a section at St. Etienne, in which many similar stems are seen in an erect position, in sandstone of the
