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LETTER XL. 



METALLIC FOSSIL - WOOD.. ..BOG IRON ORE.. ..FOSSIL WOOD, IM- 

 PREGNATED WITH IRON. ...WITH COPPER, &C. 



BESIDES the pyritous fossil woods, already treated of, there exists 

 a great variety of metallized fossil woods the peculiarities of which 

 we shall now endeavour to ascertain ; but which could not have 

 been so well done, until the influence of bituminization in the pe- 

 trifaction of vegetables had been displayed. 



As iron is the metal which is most generally diffused in the earth, 

 so it is also most frequently found in combination with fossil wood. 

 The most remarkable specimens of this kind of wood have been 

 found in Siberia, and in various parts of Germany. In the year 

 1710, a wonderful metamorphosis of a tree into iron ore, to use the 

 words of the author*, was discovered in the neighbourhood of 

 Solms Laubac. In digging a well, the workmen first found, at the 

 depth of a few feet, an urn, from which, and some other circum- 

 stances, it was supposed to have been a spot on which the remains 

 of the dead had been consumed. When the diggers had reached 

 the depth of 70 feet, their progress was checked by a vast impene- 

 trable mass, which appeared to be the trunk and branches of a large 

 tree. Finding this mass to resist their hatchets, and other instru- 

 ments, they proceeded to remove this impediment to their labours 

 by force; breaking, but with great difficulty, the metallized tree 

 into fragments, which they threw about, without any further notice. 

 Chance, however, having brought some of these fragments to the 



* J. J. Liehnecht, Discursus de Diluvio Magno, page 206. 1714, 



