54 



was considered as fossil ebony. Referring to a certain statue 

 formed of ebony, he says, he heard from a man of Cyprus, exceed- 

 ingly learned in the properties of plants, that ebony never put forth 

 either leaves or fruits, nor ever showed a trunk above ground, 

 Agricola*, also notices this supposed particularity of ebony, add- 

 ing, that its external appearance is similar to that of jet; from 

 which, however, it differs in being but little affected, whilst jet 

 burns, and is consumed, in the fire. A piece of this kind of ebony, 

 he says, was once presented to him as a branch of black coral. 



There is, perhaps, no part of the known world, in which the mi- 

 neralized remains of trees have not been discovered. According to 

 Agricola-f-, very large trunks of firs have been dug up in different 

 parts of Germany, turned, with their bark, into stone ; the crevices 

 of which were filled with golden coloured pyrites, or marcasites. 

 Similar trees, with branches, have also been dug up near Cracow, 

 which, when cut into the'form of whetstones, were sent as presents 

 by the barons, who held the territory, to Ferdinand the king of Bo- 

 hemia. He relates, that he himself saw, in a pool near the castle of 

 Robestein, in Misena, many trunks of trees, which were changed 

 into stone. In the earth from which the alum is obtained, near 

 Hildesheim, oak trees were found converted to stone; and in the 

 same country, near to the castle of Mariaburg, he mentions a hill 

 full of logs in a petrified state. These are very long, and seem as 

 if they had been placed together in heaps; their stony hardness 

 fceing rendered sufficiently evident, on being struck by a piece of 

 iron, or another stone. In the aluminous earth of Hildesheim is 

 ajso found the fossil wood, which, as has been just observed, has 

 been considered as fossil ebony. 



Agricola, whose actual researches were such as must have fur- 

 nished him with numerous opportunities of determining, that this 

 astonishing change of wood into stone did actually take place ; but, 



* Agricola, De Natura Fossilium, lib. viii. p. 324. Basileae, MDLVIII, t Loc. cit. 



