276 



and expense, they were brought into it from some adjacent ground, 

 after their actual petrification, \vhicli is Iiardly to be supposed. 



Mr. Smyth tells you further, that "T\vo gentlemen of the nortk 

 of Ireland where this lough lies, had told him, that they had seen. 

 the same body, partly wood, and partly stone; but the only reason 

 for thinking so, being the diversity of colours, which might well 

 enough proceed from several degrees of petrification, we may pro- 

 perly think them deceived ; for they made no experiment on that 

 part which they reputed wood. The bark is never found petrified, 

 as he was informed by a diligent inquirer; but often somewhat rot- 

 ten about the stone, answerable to the bark.'' 



Mr. Smyth contradicts himself no less in his last supposition, than 

 he did in the first. His friends assured him, that they had seen one 

 or more of the Lough- neagh stones partly wood and partly stone ; 

 but they were deceived, he says : the diversity of colours, by which 

 they judged one part of the stone by its colour to be wood, and the 

 other part likewise, by its colour different from the other, to be 

 stone, were no more than different degrees of petrification; What 

 are we to understand by these different degrees of petrifaction 1 by 

 this something rotten about the stone often found! if not, that 

 some part of the wood was actually turned into stone, some other 

 part in a degree less petrified, and some other part not petrified at 

 all, as these gentlemen assured him : the diversity of colours, see- 

 ing and feeling* was enough to convince them, and to determine 

 the point. 



" The earth, says the great Robert Boyle , harbours different 

 kinds of petresceut liquors, and many of them impregnated with 

 one sort of mineral or other." There are no springs, no waters, 

 but are more or less impregnated with such mineral and saline par- 

 ticles; which appears from the most limpid; which after evapora- 

 tion, still in the residuum, gives some particles of salt, with some 

 stony and mineral ones. 



Mr. Smyth has found by experience, that petrifying springs are 

 generally impregnated, some with calcareous and particles of other 

 stones, and others with ferrugineous and vitriolic particles. Those 

 of the stony or calcareous kind, when they drop on wood, or other 

 vegetables, act on them for the most part by incrustation, having 

 different degrees and periods for their respective incrustations and 



i ' - - - " - ' - 



* R. Boyle, of the. Origin and Virtues of Getns. Orig. 



