107 



To prevent this decomposition and destruction of his more va- 

 luable specimens, he adopted the practice of washing off the salts 

 from them, by two or three times in the day jpouring boiling water 

 over them ; and thus he had preserved some for the space of three 

 or four years. 



The quantity of this fossil wood appears to have been truly pro- 

 digious. The stratum, of which we have hitherto spoken, was about 

 twenty feet in depth, the bottom of it resting on a stratum of stone, 

 about a foot in thickness. On piercing this, another stratum of 

 fossil wood was found : to discover the depth of which several at- 

 tempts were made ; but although the borers passed to the depth of 

 thirty feet, they did not reach to the bottom of this stratum. Hence 

 it was only ascertained, that the fossil wood was at least fifty feet 

 deep ; since they were unable to determine to how much greater 

 a depth the stratum reached. A difference was observable in the 

 two strata, which merits our particular notice : the fossil wood con^ 

 tained in the upper stratum, was of a light brown colour; but that 

 in the inferior stratum, was of a much darker brown, verging upon 

 black. 



The earth, which lay over the fossil wood, not only had the same 

 brown colour for more than half a foot in thickness, but was im* 

 pregnated with similar sulphurous and aluminous particles, and 

 even yielded almost as good fuel. 



Taking advantage of a passage which had been dug into the 

 body of fossil wood, the professor passed nearly two hundred feet 

 in length within it, so that the roof, fioor, and sides of the place, in 

 which he stood, were entirely composed, of what he esteemed, a 

 mass of vegetable ruins. Here the water, which had insinuated it- 

 self in the top of the mountain, was found dripping through the 

 roof; and sulphurous and aluminous matter were found to exist, 

 in an equal proportion with that which pervaded the other parts of 

 this mass. Between the fossil wood was seen, in some places, a 



