208 



nature. The Indians obtain from this earth a liquor, useful in 

 curing many diseases. Their mode of obtaining it is this: they 

 cut the earth in turfs, which they dispose on poles, or thick reeds, 

 in a place exposed to the sun, placing beneath them vessels fit to 

 receive the fluid ; since the bitumen liquefies, and flows down by 

 the heat of the sun. The turfs, which are thus deprived of their 

 bituminous fluid, are afterwards employed as fuel. In this case, 

 the connection between these two substances appears to be pointed 

 out decidedly, unless it should be contended, that their existence 

 thus together might be only accidental. The frequency, however, 

 with which they are thus found together, the form which the bitu- 

 men assumes, and indeed the manner in which it is blended with 

 the peat or fossil wood, strongly declare that the formation of the 

 bitumen depends on the same process as peat. 



Schoockius, as we have already seen, relates, that masses of bitu- 

 men are frequently found among the peat ; sometimes resembling, 

 in size and figure, walnuts, eggs, and pine nuts ; and although he 

 is obliged to acknowledge that undoubted pine nuts were also found 

 in the same pits, yet these bituminous masses, found in the same 

 pits with them, were so entirely bituminous, that he could not be- 

 lieve them ever to have been any thing but a mineral production. 



Stelluto, describing the fossil wood of Umbria, mentions a white 

 resinous substance, which was found along with it, and which bore 

 the appearance of mastic or frankincense. 



Dr. Woodward also mentions, that, along with the hazel nuts and 

 peat, dug up in the Isle of Wight, were pieces of wood, much im- 

 paired and decayed, with some small quantities of a black bitumi- 

 nous matter in its interstices. The Doctor also describes a resinous 

 matter, which was found lying between the bark and the wood of 

 some of the trees dug up in Wilmeslow marshes. They call it there, 

 he informs us, frankincense*. 



* Vol. I. Part. II. p. 18. 



