People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1894 — YELLOWSTONE FOSSIL FORESTS. [ARTICLE]

YELLOWSTONE FOSSIL FORESTS.

Siliclfled Stamps or Trees Which Dloomod Thousands of Years Ago. These standing %ilicified stumps and fallen trees were found varying in diameter from one to seven feet, says • writer in the Popular Science Monthly. Two sections of trees were found so perfect that the rings of annual growth throughout could be counted, except a few, fifteen or twenty, near the heart and bark. One tree measuring three feet in diameter, had two hundred and twenty-two rings of growth, and another of threo feet five inches in diameter had two hundred and fortythree —this without any allowance for a few missing rings at the center and toward the bark. The larger of these trees was half the size the largest seen. Many were found varying in diameter from five to seven feet, but none of this size was seen exposing the rings throughout the entire section. Judging from the closeness of the rings in certain well-preserved por tions of these larger trees many of them must have been at least five hundred years in attaining their growth, if the rings were truly annual. Taking one-half this number, two hundred and fifty years, as the more probable age of the successive forests at this point, it is seen that the earliest of these tree? were living more than two thousand years before the last, during which time there were alternating conditions of growth and accumulation •! volcanic material. This estimate mab?.u no allowance for the time necessary for the formation of a soil upon th% volcanic material, which at first sight would seem necessary for the support of such a vigorous vegetation. It iD not probable, however, that any considerable time was necessary for thix purpose, for, with rare exceptions, each succeeding forest took root and began to grow very promptly after the destruction of its predecessor. In most cases the destroying flood consisted of mud, ashes, conglomerate and other volcanic material, which formed an excellent base for vegetation, and it wai doubtless covered with a luxuriant growth as soon as it was dried or cooled sufficiently, and this would requiro only a short time.