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account of Mr. Barrow, in his Travels into Southern Africa, been 

 found at the Cape of Good Hope. 



Pillingen informs us, that upon distilling the fossil wood of Meiz- 

 libizen, he obtained from it, as well as from the bituminous earth, 

 which accompanied it, nothing which appeared to be derived from 

 vegetable matter. With a gentle heat, on sand, a water came 

 over, tasting of bitumen, and a limpid and penetrating oil, like oil 

 of amber. On increasing the heat, he obtained a more foetid, thick, 

 and sulphurous oil ; with a slightly acid, but pungently smelling 

 water. By still farther increasing the heat, he obtained a most 

 thick, black, stinking oil, with a turbid sulphurous water, having 

 an acid and disagreeable taste. With an intense naked fire, a light 

 brown, flocculent, sulphurous, or rather, he says, a saline bitter sub- 

 limate arose ; leaving a hard clinkery matter at the bottom of the 

 retort ; from every hundred pounds of which, he assures us, he was 

 able to obtain nearly an ounce and a half of the purest silver. 



Dr. Milles also subjected the Bovey Coal to analysis, by which, 

 he says, if any doubt could remain of its being a mineral substance, 

 it must be completely removed. 



From one pound of Bovey Coal, of the woody kind, he obtained 

 on sand, four ounces and a half of water, of a bituminous smell and 

 taste ; nearly four ounces of a turbid, whitish, bituminous liquor, 

 of an intolerable foetid smell, and extremely pungent to the tongue; 

 and about two drachms of a heavy bituminous matter, which would 

 not mix with the former liquor, but sunk entirely to the bottom, 

 without leaving any light oil floating on the bituminous liquor. 

 There remained in the retort about seven ounces of a very black 

 powder, which had the same bituminous smell, and not very heavy ; 

 some of which being put on a red hot iron, emitted a little smoke, 

 but no flame. The ashes of this fossil yielded no salt on being 

 boiled in water. 



