Petrified Moss

Some time ago I was making my way along a trout stream in the Draperstown district, when my attention was drawn to an untidy looking patch of moss, which was growing on an adjacent bank. I proceeded to examine it, and found that beneath the surface layer there was a mass of rock-like matter that had accumulated from the mineral substances held in solution by the waters of a petrifying spring issuing at the same spot. I paid another visit to the same place a few days ago in order to further examine it, and to secure a few specimens along with a description of the occurrence, believing that it would be of interest to the readers of your ‘Nature Notes’ column. I had to cross a considerable stretch of country to reach it and on my way I noticed, in a lane, the tracks of one old and one young badger, also the track of another badger in a second lane. The nuts were brown on the hazel bushes and hanging in beautiful clusters, and the berries were red on the twining honeysuckle. On reaching the place where I had previously detected the petrifying spring, I found on examination that springs of the same nature were issuing from a good many different places, and the stone formed by them usually assumed the shape of whatever plant the matter in solution came in contact with. The moss plants were very beautifully reproduced, even to the most slender and delicate branchlet. In one case a portion of the rock on one side of the stream was worn out bu the action of a side rush of water, leaving a hole that extended into the bank for a couple of yards or thereabouts, the roof the miniature cavern thus formed being covered in a wonderful manner with stalactites, and the floor with a stalagmite sheet, in which was embedded numerous little twigs of driftwood swept in by the stream when in flood, the sides being encrusted with petrified moss. The petrified material was in some cases extremely hard, so that it was a difficult matter to secure specimens. – G. B. Mc Keown (Draperstown).

[Mr. Mc Keown has kindly forwarded me several examples of the petrified moss, really very fine examples, which I shall hand over to the Belfast Museum for preservation. – Ed.]