36 On some Vegetable Remains found near Bath. [Jan, 



lay a rounded body consisting of the same kind of crystals 

 arranged longitudinally in grooves, divided at nearly regular 

 distances by transverse septa of white crystals, the channels 

 between which were tilled up with a crumbling substance resem- 

 bhng charcoal, and which, like that, readily enters into combus- 

 tion without flaming. The same substance seems more or less 

 to be distributed in the interstices between the crystals, appear- 

 ing thus, as if the crystallized granulations were in the direction 

 of the fibres, or rather sap vessels of wood, and the transverse 

 crystals, bearing a similarity to the septa so plainly observable 

 in the timber of oak and beech. 



My curiosity being excited, I returned to the quarry, in the 

 hope of discovering more vestiges of vegetable matter, and my 

 hope was not disappointed. In the interstice between two large 

 blocks of stone, near the bottom of the third stratum, I found a 

 larger quantity of a nearly similar substance jammed in between 

 the two stones, but unconnected with either (the former specimen 

 was enclosed within a solid block). The process of crystalliza- 

 tion is not so complete in this as in the other ; but although it 

 has the same carbonized appearance, its specific gravity is 

 greater, and it is not so readily, in fact scarcely at all inflammable, 

 possessing a greater mixture of earthy or calcareous matter 

 iincrystaUized. A workman informed me that large pieces, to 

 use his own expression, " as thick as his thigh," have been 

 found at considerable depth in the quarry. 



Mr. Townsend, in the before-quoted work, mentions charcoal 

 being found in the great oolite and forest marble, and other 

 authors have noticed the same phenomenon, but none, that I 

 recollect, specify at what depth it has been discovered, nor, 

 which is of still greater importance, precisely of what substance^ 

 whether organic or inorganicy the superstrata consisted,* the 

 wonder being, to find the remains of wood (and I think that my 

 specimens are ivood is indisputable) thus situated. 



My object in troubling you with so circumstantial an account 

 is to elicit from one of your geological correspondents an expla- 

 nation of the occurrence of this substance beneath three strata 

 of stone, 20 feet in thickness, formed entirely of ocea?«"c remains. 

 The universal deluge was one single convulsion of nature. This 

 climate is not subject to partial or secondary ones, and every 

 appearance of the quarry evinces an uninterrupted repose during 

 ages. The deluge might have caused the antediluvian dry land 

 to become the bed of the postdiluvian ocean, and vice versa ; 

 but this charcoal, petrified wood^ semi-coal, or by whatever jiame 

 it may be called, seems to demonstrate a convulsion prior to that 

 which piled upon it an innumerable quantity of marine animals. 

 A solution of this difficulty will, perhaps, be beneficial to science, 

 and much oblige yours, &c. H. Woods. 



" Mr. Townsend also mentions rvood mixed with shells in enumerating alluvial fos- 

 rfls; but that I conceive does not at all apply to the present subjec*. 



