Extract from :
'Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society', 
Vol XV, Parts I - XVIII, Pub. 1880
FOSSIL TREES, p. 339-340

Mr. AITKEN said: Perhaps you will also allow me to bring under your notice the fact that in some excavations recently made at Oldham a number of erect trees have been discovered. The excavations were made in getting shale for the purpose of making bricks. The quarry has been worked I believe for about three years; and I am told by Mr. Neild, who resides near the place, and has visited it frequently, that some scores of fossil trees have been found during that period.

I paid a visit to the quarry about a week ago, and found two erect trees in situ, one was 18 inches in diameter and about 8 feet high, and I learned that about 6 feet of it had been removed before the time of my visit. The roots spread out forming a large stool, and having been bared for the purpose of examination presented a very interesting and remarkable feature. There was another tree about 3 feet high, and of rather larger diameter; but some, I believe, have been discovered in this quarry upwards of 2 feet in diameter, and of greater length than any I have mentioned. They seem all to stand upon one general level and in the stratum, which underlies the roots there are found a large number of fossil ferns, calamites, and other vegetable remains.

The trunks are not perfectly vertical, in consequence of the rock in which they are embedded having been tilted over to an angle of six or eight degrees. Besides the trunks I have mentioned there are indications of eleven more which have been removed by the workmen. The concave surfaces left in the face of the rock are, however, still visible. Some of these, also, have been of very considerable height and large diameter. They may still be examined by anyone who feels sufficiently interested in the matter. The quarry is on the north-east side of Oldham, at Oldham Edge, and near the Lower Moor Colliery.

The Chairman (Prof. Dawkins) said he quite agreed with Mr. Aitken with regard to these trees; they certainly were the most remarkable instance of the exposure of a carboniferous forest to day-Iight he had ever seen. He did not believe in this country we had ever had so fine an illustration of the way in which the trees grew, and of the way in which they had been preserved, as in that place. The stems of the trees might be seen close to one anotber—-two were quite close together-conveying an idea of the dense condition of the carboniferous forest, of which they formed a part."