xii APPENDIX.

these are several beds of brownish sandstone of va-‘ rious qualities, one stratum appearing to be sufficient- ly hard for building purposes. lmbedded in one 0

these layers appear some large fossil trees, one 0

them nearly three feet in diameter; they are prostrate and much flattened by pressure, and the place once5 occupied by their wood is now filled with a hard dark-‘ coloured silicious (flinty) stone, which, when polished in thin slices and examined by the microscope, dis- plays the structure ofthe original wood. These trees appear to have been partially decomposed before they were submitted to the petrifying process, and the rents caused by decay are now filled with red colour- ed crystals of Sulphate of Barytes. In some ofthe specimens the fissures are coated with silicious crys- tals, and portions ofsome of the trunks consist ofa soft carbonaceous ironstone, retaining the woody structure. Having prepared several slices of one of these fossils, and examined them with a microscope, I found a structure composed of elongated cells, simi— lar-to those of coniferous trees, (pines, firs, 8w.) but could perceive no trace ofthe disks and reticulations on the walls ofthe cells which characterise the wood ofthese plants, and even the medullary rays were very indistinct. Though it is probable therefore that these trees were coniferous plants, somewhat similar to pines, the species, whether recent or fossil, to which they belong is uncertain.*

Their appearance in these sand stones carries back our thoughts to a period when Prince Edward Island was a tract of submarine sand, in which drift trees were imbedded and preserved, and which has since been indnrated and partially elevated above the level of the sea. In another of these sand stone beds are the remains of a large tree compressed to

* In the coal measure sand stones of Pictou, two species of fossil coniferul, one similar to Pinites Wilhami, the other resembling re- cent pines, are found abundantly. The specimens from Orwell Point. merely resemble the latter species. A specimen of the wood from Orwell Point has been placed in the collection of the Mechanics'

Institute at Charlottetown.