Now that all agree that these underclays are ancient soils, it follows that in
every instance where we find them they attest the terrestrial nature of the
plants which formed the overlying coal, which consists of the trunks, branches,
and leaves of the same plants. The trunks have generally fallen prostrate in the
coal, but some of them still remain at right angles to the ancient soils (see
Figure 440). Professor Goppert, after examining the fossil vegetables of the
coal-fields of Germany, has detected, in beds of pure coal, remains of plants of
every family hitherto known to occur fossil in the carboniferous rocks. Many
seams, he remarks, are rich in Sigillariae, Lepidodendra, and Stigmariae, the
latter in such abundance as to appear to form the bulk of the coal. In some
places, almost all the plants were calamites, in others ferns. (Quarterly
Geological Journal volume 5 Mem. page 17.)
Between the years 1837 and 1840, six fossil trees were discovered in the coal-
fields of Lancashire, where it is intersected by the Bolton railway. They were
all at right angles to the plane of the bed, which dips about 15 degrees to the
south.
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