34. The J^atural Hiflory 



tilia, is covered over with a foft ftone ; and yet fo, that broken 

 off, the grafs appeared (for any thing I could fee) as frefh and 

 green as any other not crufted, nothing of the blade being alter'd 

 or impaired, which is the neareft incrujlation I ever yet faw : for 

 though fome of thefe petrified blades of grafs hung down at leaft 

 a foot in length, yet flipping them off from about the root, I 

 could take the grafs by the end, and pull it clean out as it were 

 from a (heath of ftone, fo little of cohefion had the one to the 

 other : the reafonof which I guefs may be, that the />om of the 

 Plant pofTeft with its own juice, and already furnifh'd with a 

 congenial [alt-, might well refufe adventitious ones. 



27. And yet far other wife is it, but juft on the other fide the 

 River at North- Ajhton, in a Field north-weft of the Church, where 

 either the petrifying water, or plants, are fo different from what 

 before I had found them zzSommerton, that though there too the 

 work be begun by adhefion, yet the roots of rufies, graft, mofi, (src. 

 are in a while fo altogether eaten away, that nothing remains af- 

 ter the petrification is compleated, but the figures of thofe Plants 

 with fome augmentation. 



28. And petrifications of this kind I frequently meet with, 

 that happen on things of much different fubft ances, zsjlells, nuts, 

 leaves of trees, and many times on their moft ligneous parts. In 

 the Parifh of S r Clements in the Suburbs of Oxford, about a quarter 

 of a milediftant, on the right hand of the firft way that turns 

 eafi-ward out of Marfton-lane, there is a ditch, the water whereof 

 incrufiates the flicks that fall out of the hedge, and fome other 

 matters it meets with there : but this is fo inconfiderable, that I 

 fhould not have mention'd it, but that it has been taken notice of 

 by fo many before, that my filence herein would have looked like 

 a defect. Much better for this purpofe is the water of a Pump 

 at the Crop-Inn near Carfax, in the City it felf, which not only 

 incrufiates boards fallen into it, but inferts it felf fo intimately in- 

 to the pores of the wood, that by degrees rotting it away, there 

 is in the end the fucceflion of a perfect ftone ; and that not with- 

 out fome courfe reprefentation of the very lineaments of the 

 wood it felf : Which though I muft confefs to be of fomwhat a 

 higher kind of petrification than incrufiation, yet it being wholly 

 performed by acceffion of parts, and continual intrufion into the 

 open pores of rotten wood, will not amount to the warranty of a 

 different ffecies. 29. A 



