The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1859-12-21
A Vegetable Mummy.

Let US trace the history OF single
pine tree Of the Ooli.e, as indicated by
its petri6ed remains. His gnarlod and
twisted trunk once anchored its roots amid
the crannies Of precipice of a dark gray
sandstone that rose over some nameless
stream Of the Oolite in what is now the
North Of Scotland. The rock which, not
withstanding its dingy color, was de-
post of the lower old red sandstone, form
ed a number of the fish beds 0f that sys-
tem--bcds that were charged then, as now
with numerous fossils as strange and OBJ
solotc in the creation Of the Oolite rs in
the creation which at present exists. 1t
was firm, indestructible stone, covered
by thin, barren soil and the twisted
rootlcts of the pine, rejected and thrown
backward from its more solid planes, had
TO penetrate into its narrow assures for
a straitened aud meagsr subsistence.
The tree grow but slowly in consider
ably more than half century it had at
tanned to diameter Of little more than
ten inches, foot over the soil and its
bent and twisted form gave evidence of
the life of hardship to which it was ex-
posed. 1t was, in truth, a picturesque
rag Of tree, that for the first few feet
twisted itself round like an oyerborne
wrestler struggling to escape from under
his enemy, and then struck out an abrupt
angle, and stretcheditsclf like a bent arm
over the stream The seasons passed
over It; every opening spring gave its
fringe of rendered green to its spiky loli-
age, and every returning autumn saw it
shed its cones into the stream below
Many delicate fem sprang up and de-
cayed around its gnarled and fantastic
root, single leaved and simple of form, like
scolCpendria of our caverns and rock re-
cesses, Or fretted irto many slim pin
nate leahet. like the minute maiden han
or the graceful lady fern. Flying rep
tiles have perched among its bloughs; the
light winged dragon fly has darted on
wings of cause through the opening of its
lesser twigs; the tortoise and the lizard
have hybernated during the chills of win
ter amid the hollow OF its roots; for many
years it formed one OF the minor features
in wild and picturesque scene, on which
human eye ne'er looked and, at length,
touched by decay its upper branches be-
gan to wither and bleach white in the
winds Of heaven when shaken by sud-
den hurricane that came roaring adown
the ravine, the mass of rock in which it
had been anchored gave way, and, bear
ing fast jammed among its roots frag-
ment of the mass which we still find there,
and from which we read a portion of its
story, it was precipitated into the foaming
torrent. Dancing on the eddies, or ling
ering amid the pools, or shooting, arrow
like, adown the rapids, it at length finds
its way to the sea; and after sailing over
beds of massive coral--the pOnderous
BGStrea and more delicate ThamndStrea
and after disturbing the Enallosaur and
the Balemnite in their deep green haunts,
it sinks, saturated with water, into a bed
of aranaceous mud, to make its appear
ance, after long ages in the world of man
"a marble mummy of the old Oolite for
ests--and to be curiously interrogated re-
garding its character and history.-Hhgh
lliEiey's " Popular Geology"