68 Professor Buckland on the 



tBeir late voyage on the Irawadi, from Rangoon to Ava, anct 

 with the opinions I have expressed in a paper I am at this time 

 printing in the Geological Transactions, on the fossil wood and 

 bones which they found on the borders of this river, that I must 

 request you to submit the following observations to the readers 

 of your Journal. 



We are told that the period of the submersion of these mas- 

 sive pillars was altogether but thirty months, and that, in this 

 short time, they were petrified throughout ; but it is not men- 

 tioned whether they were converted into silex or carbonate 

 of lime. Now, the most remarkable example we know of 

 wood silicified by any existing river, is that of the piles of a 

 Roman bridge built by Trajan over the Danube, below Bel- 

 grade, which have become silicified at the surface, but not at 

 the centre, during the lapse of many centuries. One of them 

 was taken up and examined by order of the Emperor of Ger- 

 many, in the year 1760, and found to be converted to agate to 

 the depth of only half an inch from the surface ; the inner parts 

 were slightly petrified, and the central still wood *. 



In the more common cases of rapid incrustation by calcareous 

 earth, the wood is simply incased with stony matter, and not 

 penetrated by it throughout, as the pillars at Prome are stated 

 to have been. The supposed rapid petrifaction of these pillars, 

 therefore, is so contrary to all experience, and to theoretical pro- 

 bability, that I cannot but imagine that there must be some 

 mistake in the information given to Lieutenant Alexander upon 

 the subject. Is it not more probable, either that the fossil trees, 

 which are so abundant in this district, were made use of as posts 

 to support the house in question, or that the pioneers, on find- 

 ing the natural hardness of the pillars of teak, were either im- 

 pressed by the popular belief of the petrifying powers of the 

 Irawadi, or took advantage of it to escape from their laborious 

 task ? 



Should these hypotheses be untenable, and the pillars have 

 been converted throughout to stone in ten years, and from this 

 cause have defied the axes of the pioneers, they still exist, and 

 may be appealed to in evidence of the fact ; not only so, but the 



• See Kirwan's Geological Essays v Essay iv. p. 139. 



