VOL. XLIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 28p 



parts of it ; since nothing but chance could have directed to the proper places, 

 which probably were those unfrozen parts. 



Stones have been thought by some to be organized vegetables, and to be pro* 

 duced from seed. To Bp. B. it seems, that stones are vegetables unorganized. 

 Other vegetables are nourished and grow by a solution of salt attracted into their 

 tubes or vessels. And stones grow by the accretion of salts, which often shoot 

 into angular and regular figures. This appears in the formation of crystals on 

 the alps : and that stones are formed by the simple attraction and accretion of 

 salts, appears in the tartar on the inside of a claret-vessel, and especially in the 

 formation of a stone in the human body. 



The air is in many places impregnated with such salts. He had seen at Agri- 

 gent um, in Sicily, the pillars of stone in an ancient temple corroded and consumed 

 by the air, while the shells which entered the composition of the stone remained 

 entire and untouched. He has elsewhere observed marble to be consumed in 

 the same manner ; and it is common to see softer kinds of stone moulder and 

 dissolve merely by the air acting as a menstruum. Therefore the air may be 

 presumed to contain many such salts, or stony particles. 



Air, acting as a menstruum in"" the cavities of the earth, may become saturated 

 (in like manner as above-ground) with such salts as, ascending in vapours or 

 exhalations, may petrify wood, whether lying in the ground adjacent, or in the 

 bottom of the lake. This is confirmed by the author's own remark on the bath 

 called the Green Pillars in Hungary. The insinuating of such salts into the 

 wood seems also confirmed by the author's having observed minute hexagonal 

 crystals in the woody part of the petrifactions of Lough-Neagh. 



A petrifying quality shows itself in all parts of this terraqueous globe, in 

 water, earth, and sand ; in Tartary for instance, and Afric, in the bodies of 

 most sorts of animals, it is even known that a child has been petrified in the 

 mother's womb. Osteocolla grows in the land, and coral in the sea. Grottoes, 

 springs, lakes, and rivers, are in many parts remarkable for this same quality. 

 No man therefore can question the possibility of such a thing as petrified wood ; 

 though perhaps the petrifying quality might not be originally in the earth or 

 water, but in the vapour or steam impregnated with saline or stony particles. 

 Perhaps the petrifaction of wood may receive some light from considering amber. 

 whicTi is dug up in the king of Prussia's dominions. 



The bishop adds another remark, which may be useful for the better under- 

 standing of the nature of stone. In the vulgar definition, it is said to be a fossil 

 incapable of fusion. He had nevertheless known stone to be melted, and when 

 cold to become stone again. Such is that stuff, by the natives called sciara, 

 which runs down in liquid burning torrents from the craters of mount Etna, and 

 which, when cold and hard, is hewed and employed at Catania, and otlier places 



VOL, IX. Pp 



