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In a considerable stratum of fossil wood, discovered by M. Fon- 

 taine, between Lyons and Strasburgh, several of the pieces were found 

 to be incrusted with a pretty considerable quantity of a substance, 

 which he describes as resembling coarse and imperfect mastic, 

 mixed with other substances, and adhering so strongly to the wood, 

 as to be very difficult of separation. Among the fossil wood of 

 Bovey, as well as among that of Munden, bitumen is also frequently 

 found. 



From the observations already adduced, sufficient surely ap- 

 pears to warrant the conclusion, that those substances, which are 

 agreed by all to belong to the class of bitumens, are produced by 

 a further advance of the same process by which peat is formed. 

 By attending to the properties possessed by these substances, as 

 already described, it must occur to you, that although they are 

 actually of a distinctly different nature, they approach yery nearly, 

 in their chemical and physical qualities, to the vegetable oils and 

 resins. 



A circumstance here also offers itself to our contemplation, truly 

 admirable and interesting. A principle of action developes itself, 

 totally new to our observation, and almost beyond our powers of 

 comprehension; since it presents to us substances, formed merely 

 by chemical action, emulating in their nature and appearance some 

 of those substances, which are only formed by the peculiar powers 

 resulting from organization. 



In the living vegetable, substances are formed, from tasteless 

 and inodorous materials, by the energies of vegetable life, which 

 not only strongly affect the senses of taste and smell, but differ 

 essentially in their properties from the substances from which they 

 have been formed. So the bituminous fermentation, imitating 

 the result of the operation of secretion, forms, from a mass of dead 

 vegetable matter, substances nearly resembling, in most of their 

 properties, the vegetable oils and resins, which perhaps may be 



VOL. I. HE 



