t2g'2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I746. 



On the Petrifactions of Lough-Neagh in Ireland. By Mr. James Simon, of 



Dublin. N° 481, p. 305. 



Most of the ancient writers, who have treated of Ireland, have mentioned the 

 peculiar qualities of Lough-neagh, of turning wood into stone; some of them* 

 have gone so far as to say, that it would turn that part of the wood which was in 

 the mud into iron ; the part in the water into stone ; while the part ahove water 

 remained wood. 



Some later writers, particularly Wm. Molyneux, Francis Nevil, and Edward 

 Smyth, and from them the late Dr. Woodward,-}- and others, + seem rather to 

 think, that this petrifying quality does not lie so much in the lake itself, as in 

 the ground near or about it. 



Mr. Edward Smyth,§ who enlarges most on this subject, and seems to have 

 led the others, and drawn them into his opinion, tells us, " That no experiment 

 or observation yet made, which he had heard of, could prove that this lough has 

 really the quality of petrifying wood, or that the water does any way help or pro- 

 mote the petrification." He there gives an example of a gentleman of worth and 

 credit, " who had fixed two stakes of holly in two different places of the lough, 

 near that place where the upper-bann enters into it, and that the parts of the 

 stakes which had been washed by the water for about 1 g years, yet remained 

 there without any alteration, or the least advance to petrification." 



Another reason for his doubting of this quality is, " That though it is re- 

 ported that the water has this virtue, especially where the black-water discharges 

 itself into the lake, yet that as it seems evident, from the nature of liquid bodies, 

 that any virtue received in one part must necessarily be diffused through the 

 whole, at least in some degree; therefore, says he, there is good reason to be- 

 lieve, that the water is wholly destitute of this petrifying quality :" but a few lines 

 lower he tells you, " That he had sufficient ground to conjecture, that other 

 wood as well as holly had been petrified about this lough ; because some fisher- 

 men, being tenants to a gentleman from whom he had this account, told him, 

 that they had found buried, in the mud of this lough, large trees, with all their 

 branches and roots petrified ; and some of that size, that they believed they could 

 scarcely be drawn by a team of oxen ; that they had broken off several branches 

 as thick as a man's leg, and many thicker, but could not move the great trunk." 



He supposes Mr. Smyth, or the gentleman his friend, saw these branches, and 

 was thereby convinced of their real petrification, as he was by the bulk of those 

 trees of their being oak, and not holly ; " because, says he, no other tree in that 



• Boelius Hist. Gem. et Lap. — Orig. -f- Catal. of English Fossils, part 2, p. 19. — Orig. 



J Sir James Ware's Antiq. by Walt. Harris, p. 227. Edit. 174-5, folio. — Orig. 

 § Afterwards Bishop of Down. See Phil. Trans. N° 174. — Orig. 



