Introduction to the Study of Palæontological Botany

by John Hutton Balfour

Fig. 7.

Fig. 7. Nicolia Owenii (Carr.), from the Tertiary Strata of Egypt.

Silicified stems of trees have been observed in various parts of the world, with their structure well preserved, so that their Endogenous and Exogenous character could be easily determined. The Rev. W. B. Clarke notices the occurrence of a fossil pine-forest at Kurrur-Kurrân, in the inlet of Awaaba, on the eastern coast of Australia. In the inlet there is a formation of conglomerate and sandstone, with subordinate beds of lignite—the lignite forming the so-called Australian coal. Throughout the alluvial flat, stumps and stools of fossilised trees are seen standing out of the ground, and one can form no better notion of their aspect than by imagining what the appearance of the existing living forest of Eucalypti and Casuarinæ would be if the trees were all cut down to a certain level. In a lake in the vicinity there are also some fossilised stumps of trees, standing vertically. In Derwent Valley, Van Diemen's Land, fossil silicified trees, in connection with trap rocks, have been found in an erect position. One was measured with a stem 6 feet high, a circumference at the base of 7 feet 3 inches, and a diameter at the top of 15 inches. The stems are Coniferous, resembling Araucaria. The outer portion of the stem is of a rich brown glossy agate, while the interior is of a snowy whiteness. One hundred concentric rings have been counted. The tissue falls into a powdery mass. Silica is found in the inside of the tubes, and their substance is also silicified. The erect silicified stems of coniferous trees exist in their natural positions in the "dirt-bed," an old surface soil in the sandstone strata of the Purbeck series in the Isle of Portland, Dorsetshire. In the petrified forests near Cairo silicified stems have been examined by Brown, Unger, and Carruthers. They belong to dicotyledonous trees (not coniferous), to which the names of Nicolia Ægyptiaca and Nicolia Owenii (Fig. 7) have been given. The wood consists of a slender prosenchyma, abundantly penetrated by large ducts. The walls of the ducts are marked by small, regularly arranged, oval, and somewhat compressed hexagonal reticulations. The ducts have transverse diaphragms. There are numerous medullary rays. The wood in their stems is converted into chalcedony. (Carruthers on Petrified Forest near Cairo. Geol. Mag., July 1870.)

[Examination of the Structure of Fossil Plants.]

When the structure of fossil plants is well preserved, it may be seen under the microscope by making thin sections after the mode recommended by Mr. William Nicol, the inventor of the prism which bears his name, and to whose memory Unger dedicated the genus Nicolia, which has just been described as constituting the petrified forest at Cairo. The following is a description of the process of preparing fossils for the microscope, by Mr. Alexander Bryson. (Edin. N. Phil. Journal, N. S. iii. 297. Balfour's Botanist's Companion, p. 30.)

"The usual mode of proceeding in making a section of fossil wood is simple, though tedious. The first process is to flatten the specimen to be operated on by grinding it on a flat lap made of lead charged with emery or corundum powder. It must now be rendered perfectly flat by hand on a plate of metal or glass, using much finer emery than in the first operation of grinding. The next operation is to cement the object to the glass plate. Both the plate of glass and the fossil to be cemented must be heated to a temperature rather inconvenient for the fingers to bear. By this means moisture and adherent air are driven off, especially from the object to be operated on. Canada balsam is now to be equally spread over both plate and object, and exposed again to heat, until the redundant turpentine in the balsam has been driven off by evaporation. The two surfaces are now to be connected while hot, and a slow circular motion, with pressure, given either to the plate or object, for the purpose of throwing out the superabundant balsam and globules of included air. The object should be below and the glass plate above, as we then can see when all the air is removed, by the pressure and motion indicated. It is proper to mention that too much balsam is more favourable for the expulsion of the air-bubbles than too little. When cold, the Canada balsam will be found hard and adhering, and the specimen fit for slitting. This process has hitherto been performed by using a disc of thin sheet-iron, so much employed by the tinsmith, technically called sheet-tin. The tin coating ought to be partially removed by heating the plate, and when hot rubbing off much of the extraneous tin by a piece of cloth. The plate has now to be planished on the polished stake of the tinsmith, until quite flat. If the plate is to be used in the lathe, and by the usual method, it ought to be planished so as to possess a slight convexity. This gives a certain amount of rigidity to the edge, which is useful in slitting by the hand; while by the method of mechanical slitting, about to be described, this convexity is inadmissible. The tin plate, when mounted on an appropriate chuck in the lathe, must be turned quite true, with its edge slightly rounded and made perfectly smooth by a fine-cut file. The edge of the disc is now to be charged with diamond powder. This is done by mingling the diamond powder with oil, and placing it on a piece of the hardest agate, and then turning the disc slowly round. Then, by holding the agate with the diamond powder with a moderate pressure against the edge of the disc, it is thoroughly charged with a host of diamond points, becoming, as it were, a saw with invisible teeth. In pounding the diamond, some care is necessary, as also a fitting mortar. The mortar should be made of an old steel die, if accessible; if not, a mass of steel, slightly conical, the base of which ought to be 2 inches in diameter, and the upper part 1½ inch. A cylindrical hole is now to be turned out in the centre, of ¾ths of an inch diameter, and about 1 inch deep. This, when hardened, is the mortar; for safety it may be annealed to a straw colour. The pestle is merely a cylinder of steel, fitting the hollow mortar but loosely, and having a ledge or edging of an eighth of an inch projecting round it, but sufficiently raised above the upper surface of the mortar, so as not to come in contact while pounding the diamond. The point of the pestle ought only to be hardened and annealed to a straw colour, and should be of course convex, fitting the opposing and equal concavity of the mortar. The purpose of the projecting ledge is to prevent the smaller particles of diamond spurting out when the pestle is struck by the hammer."

Fig. 8.

Fig. 8. Mr. Bryson's instrument for slitting fossils. A very simple slicing and polishing machine has been invented by Mr. J. B. Jordan of the Mining Record Office, and is sold by Messrs. Cotton and Johnson, Grafton Street, Soho, London. It costs about £10.