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LETTER XL.

METALLIC FOSSIL WOOD....BOG IRON ORE....FOSSIL WOOD, IM-PREGNATED WITH IRON....WITH COPPER, &C.

Besides the pyritous fossil woods, already treated of, there existsa great variety of metallized fossil woods the peculiarities of whichwe shall now endeavour to ascertain; but which could not havebeen so well done, until the influence of bituminization in the pe-trifaction of vegetables had been displayed.

As iron is the metal which is most generally diffused in the earth,so it is also most frequently found in combination with fossil wood.The most remarkable specimens of this kind of wood have beenfound in Siberia , and in various parts of Germany . In the year1710, a wonderful metamorphosis of a tree into iron ore, to use thewords of the author*, was discovered in the neighbourhood ofSolms Laubac. In digging a well, the workmen first found, at thedepth of a few feet, an urn, from which, and some other circum-stances, it was supposed to have been a spot on which the remainsof the dead had been consumed. When the diggers had reachedthe depth of 70 feet, their progress was checked by a vast impene-trable mass, which appeared to be the trunk and branches of a largetree. Finding this mass to resist their hatchets, and other instru-ments, they proceeded to remove this impediment to their laboursby force; breaking, but with great difficulty, the metallized treeinto fragments, which they threw about, without any further notice.Chance, however, having brought some of these fragments to the

* J. J. Liebnecht, Discursus de Diluvio Magno, page 206. 1714.