nr 



much more brittle than cannel coal, or jet. They likewise all of 

 them agree, pretty nearly, in the same properties. In water they 

 sink ; they are all inflammable, but consume slowly in the fire ; 

 emitting a somewhat unpleasant fume, not unlike that of bitumen, 

 only fainter. 



A coal is found in the cliffs, near the castle, in the isle of Port- 

 land which has been thought to be similar to the coal which we 

 have been hitherto considering. The Kimeridge Coal, so called 

 from the place where it is dug, and which appears in most of 

 the cliffs of the isle of Purbeck, from St. Aldhelm's Chapel to East 

 Lulworth, and at Ovington, opposite to that part of Portland where 

 the coal is dug, is also supposed to be of the same kind. But on 

 reviewing the description of these coals, which are said to be very 

 hard, and to shiver into pieces like slate, when exposed to the air, 

 I am more disposed to suspect, that this fossil was rather a bitumi- 

 nous schistus, than a species of the Bovey Coal. 



Hoffman appears to describe a similar species of fossil wood, 

 found in the neighbourhood of Fischausen, &c. where they dig for 

 amber. The upper stratum is sand, under it a bed of clay, and 

 then a woody stratum, consisting of a substance like old wood, but 

 inflammable ; under this, he says, was a vitriolic mineral ; and lastly 

 a bed of sand, in which a great quantity of amber was found*. 



Of this kind too, very probably, was the fossil wood described by 

 Caesalpinus, as found in the kingdom of Naples, in a hill near the 

 city of St. John. Part of this, he says, is formed of an incrusted in- 

 flammable stone, of a brown or ash colour, resembling decayed 

 wood. This, he says, the inhabitants employ for their fires. As it 

 burns it becomes black, like half-burnt wood, and at length passes 

 into cinders. . 



Mr. Fontaine discovered a subterraneous forest, at the bottom 

 of the chain of mountains between Lyons and Strasburgh. Some 



* Observationes Physico-Chem. lib. ii. p. 199. 



