55 



at the same time, being influenced by the predominant opinion of 

 that period, that nature amused herself by modelling, in stone, imi- 

 tations of the forms of organic bodies, he thus endeavoured to fur- 

 nish a mode of distinguishing in which of these classes, the stony 

 substances bearing a vegetable form, are to be arranged. As nature, 

 he says, generates stones, resembling trees, it must be diligently ob- 

 served whether they possess the bark, pith, &c. since if these are not 

 discoverable, it may be concluded, that they are not trunks of trees 

 converted to stone, but that nature has formed those stones, to re- 

 semble the trunks of trees. Thus he says, respecting the piece of 

 timber found by Jovianus Pontanus, in the promontory of Pausi- 

 lypus, in consequence of a part of the rock being broken off by the 

 violence of the storm, we cannot determine, as these particulars are 

 not explained, whether it was a stone which only bore the form of 

 a piece of wood, or whether it was actually wood, converted into 

 stone. 



Thus also Kircher, speaking of petrified woods, observes, there 

 are some which formerly have been wood, and have been converted 

 into stone by the long course of time, or by the influence of the la- 

 pidific power. Others there are, which cannot be said to derive 

 their origin from a vegetable nature ; except in some very remote 

 way, but were thus formed from the first*. 



De Boot relates, that near Bruges in Flanders, upon digging, to 

 the depth even of 50 feet, whole forests were found ; the leaves, and 

 the trunks being so little altered, that, the different species of the 

 trees might be ascertained ; and even the different series of leaves, 

 which had fallen yearly, might also be distinguished )-. Schoockius 

 also observes, that large trunks of fossil trees are dug up in diffe- 

 rent parts of Germany ; particularly in Poland, near Bois-le-duc, in 



* De Natura Fossilium, lib. vii. p. 324. Basil. MDLVITT. Kircheri Mund. Subt. lib. viii. 

 cap. 6. 



t Gemmarum & Lapidum Historia, lib. ii. cap. 158. 



