115 



he made during a voyage to that island, with Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. 

 Solander, and Dr. Lind, in the year 1?72. 



The surturbrand, he says, is evidently wood, not quite petrified, 

 but indurated ; which drops asunder as soon as it comes into the 

 air, but keeps well in water, and never rots ; it gives a bright, 

 though weak flame, and a great deal of heat, and yields a sourish, 

 though not unwholesome smell. 



The smiths prefer it to sea-coal, because it does not so soon waste 

 the iron. The Icelanders make a powder of it, which they make 

 use of to preserve their clothes from moths : they likewise apply it 

 externally against the cholic. The doctor says, I have seen tea- 

 cups, plates, &c. in Copenhagen, made of surturbrand, which takes 

 a fine polish. It is found in many parts of Iceland, generally in 

 the mountains, in horizontal beds ; sometimes more than one bed 

 is to be met with, as in the mountain of Lack, in Bardestrand, 

 where four strata of surturbrand are found, alternately with differ- 

 ent kinds of stone. 



He brought a large piece of it with him to Sweden, in which 

 there were evident marks of branches, with the circles of the annual 

 growth of the wood*. 



The same sort of fossil wood is described by Wormius as found 

 in the island of Faro. It does not, he says, readily take fire, 

 but has a splendor like jet. It is found in the crevices of the 

 rocks and is taken out in laminae, or splinters, of three or four 

 inches thick. 



Scheuchzer mentions a stratum of fossil wood, which he saw near 

 Thun, in Switzerland, which was laying under several strata of flints, 

 clay, and ash-coloured marie. Of this wood, he says, some parts, 

 on exposure to the air, grew hard, and others broke to pieces. He 

 noticed also, that the trunks and branches of this fossil wood 

 were not round, but compressed; yet, in some places, clothed 



* Letters on Iceland, by Dr. Uno Von Troil, D.D. p. 42. 



