CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 275 



petrifying wood, or that the water does any way help or promote 

 the petrification." He there gives an example of a gentleman of 

 worth and credit, "who had fixed two stakes of holly in two dif. 

 ferent places of the lough, near that place where the upper-bann 

 enters into it, and that the parts of the stakes which had been wash- 

 ed bv the water for about nineteen years, yet remained there with- 

 out any alteration, or the least advance to petrifaction." 



Another reason for his doubting of this quality is, "That though 

 it is reported that the water has this virtue, especially where the 

 black. water discharges itself into the lake, yet that as it seems evi- 

 dent, from the nature of liquid bodies, that any virtue received in 

 oue part must necessarily be diffused through the whole, at least in 

 some degree; therefore, says he, there is good reason to believe, 

 that the water is wholly destitute of this petrifying quality :'* but a 

 few lines lower he tells you, " That he had sufficient ground to con- 

 jecture, that other wood as well as holly had been petrified about 

 this lough ; because some fishermen, being tenants to a gentleman 

 from whom he had this account, told him, that they had found 

 buried, in the mud of this lough, large trees, witli all their branches 

 and roots petrified; and some of that size, that they believed they 

 could scarcely be drawn by a team of oxen ; that they had broken, 

 off several branches as thick as a man's leg, and many thicker, but 

 could not move the great trunk." 



He supposes Mr. Smyth, or the gentleman his friend, saw these 

 branches, and was thereby convinced of their real petrification, as 

 he was by the bulk of those trees of their being oak, and not holly ; 

 " because, says he, no other tree in that country, these excepted, 

 grows to that vast size ; at least it is certain that holly never 

 docs." 



But how Mr. Smyth came to be convinced, that these trees were 

 oak, and not holly, and yet was not convinced. of the petrific qua- 

 lity in some parts of the lough, though these trees were found petri- 

 fied in its mud, is amazing; for if a team of oxen could scarcely 

 draw them from thence, it must be as hard to draw them from any 

 adjacent ground (where they must have grown, lain, and be petrifi. 

 ed) into the mud of the lake, where they were afterwards found : 

 for it must be supposed, that either these trees grew on the banks of 

 the lake, and, through age, or any other accident, fell into the 



water or mud, and were there petrified ; or that, with great labour 



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