A fossil pine forest, on the eastern coast of Australia, in the inlet called Lake Macquarrie, is described by the Rev. B. Clarke, as occurring at the base of a mountain range, composed of conglomerate and sandstone, with subordinate beds of lignite; an alluvial plain extends to the water's edge, covering the sandstone rock which is seen _in situ_ beneath. Throughout this plain, stumps of fossil trees project from the ground, and present the appearance of a forest in which the trees have all been broken off at the same level. At the distance of some yards from the shore, a reef is formed by vertical rows of the petrified stems, which project out of the water. Many of the fossil stems on the strand have the remains of roots extending into the sandstone below the alluvial deposit, and, like those in the Island of Portland, are in some instances surrounded by an accumulation of rock, which forms a mound of a higher level than the surface of the stratum. The trunks are, generally, three or four feet high, and from two to six feet in diameter. The wood is silicified, and veins of chalcedony traverse its substance between the concentric rings and medullary rays; in several examples, from 60 to 120 annual circles of growth were observable. Beds of lignite occur in the neighbouring hills, both above and below the fossil trees; many localities along the eastern coast of Australia are mentioned, as presenting similar phenomena. I may add that the only fragment of petrified wood found by Mr. Walter Mantell in New Zealand is coniferous. In the valley of the Derwent, in Australia, opalized coniferous trees of a similar character were observed under very extraordinary circumstances, by the distinguished traveller, Count Strzelecki. Truncated stems were found standing erect in a bed of scoriaceous basalt (lava) and trachytic conglomerate: but in some instances only basaltic casts of the trunks remain. This curious phenomenon can only be explained by supposing the silicified stems to have resisted the intense heat of the incandescent lava, while trees placed in circumstances unfavourable to their petrifaction were consumed: but the latter, being either saturated with water, or fresh and green, were burnt slowly, and left cylindrical moulds in the cooled basaltic scoriæ, with impressions of the external surface of the bark; these moulds were filled Tip by a subsequent eruption, and thus basaltic casts of the consumed trees were formed.[145] [145] Physical Description of New South Wales, by Count Strzelecki. Coniferous Wood in Oxford Clay.--It would occupy too much space to notice the numerous localities in which fossil remains of conifers occur in the Liassic and Oolitic formations of England.