M. Von Buch on the S'dicijication (rf Or game Bodies, 53 



or perforated cave-rock. A winding path, however, meets 

 this part of the road, by which there is an easy ascent to the up- 

 per cave. A new road is also now forming by Mr Lloyd, with 

 great taste and judgment, along the side of the cliff, near to 

 which, and at no great distance above it, and about half a mile 

 from the upper cave, another excavation in the rock presents it- 

 self, which, on examination, I found to be entirely blocked up 

 with soil, and has clearly never been open to human observation. 

 But I have no doubt, from its appearance and character, that it 

 will prove closely analogous to this which has been the subject 

 of the present communication, and will therefore, there is every 

 reason to believe, exhibit as rich a prospect, whenever its rect»sses 

 may be explored, in search of those organic remains of animals 

 now unknown in the temperate zones. These roads and the si- 

 tuation of the caves shewn in Fig. 1. of Plate I. 



On the Silicification of' Organic Bodies *. With a Plate. By 

 Baron Leopold Von Buch. 



jh KOM the lively intercourse of naturalists with one another, it 

 has happened that a number of minute observations have be- 

 come fai spread and well known, before any public mention has 

 been made of them. Every communication of such observations, 

 when made by persons of ability, will assume another form. 

 Either one has to add other facts to those originally discovered, 

 or knows how to place these same under other points of view ; 

 and thus give a new, more comprehensive, and detailed account 

 of them, from the observations which they suggested. Then 

 it is often difficult, perhaps impossible, to trace back to their 

 origin the individual facts and observations, which at length 

 afford rich and fruitful results. The priority as to the original 

 discovery becomes lost, the more easily, that in general it can- 

 not be at all foreseen what may arise out of an apparently trif- 

 ling discovery m other hands, or whither it may lead. But 

 true naturalists have never cared much about priority of disco- 

 very : such a feeling would disturb every sort of fellowship. It 

 would be easy to imagine that the germ of important discoveries 



• Read in the Academy of Sciences (of Berlin) upon the 28th of February 

 1820, and translated from the German original by George F. Hay, Esq. * 



