VOL. L.l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1^7 



slate and stone ; and even the iuli of trees are said to have been found fossil as 

 their leaves. 



Seeds and Fruits. — All seeds and the stones of fruits, having a firm texture, 

 are also capable of being strongly impregnated with stony and pyritical matter ; 

 and doubtless the smaller seeds, if carefully looked for, might be found fossil, as 

 well as these now produced, viz. such as have a firmness in the covering ; but 

 being small, and mixed with the dirt, sand, &c. probably is the reason of their 

 being overlooked. Fruits of various kinds are found petrified ; but this is only 

 in their green state, when they are hard enough to endure till they are impreg- 

 nated with stony or mineral particles. The rudiments of fruits, when once well 

 formed, and a little advanced, are firm and acid : and the more remote they are 

 from maturity, the more secure from putrefaction ; and their acid juice is no 

 small help to their preservation from growing soon rotten. But when the fruit 

 advances in growth, the texture becomes gradually more lax ; the acid juices are 

 now beginning to be replaced by saccharine or others more soft ; the fibres are 

 driven farther asunder, and they now arrive at their most ripe state : and the 

 utmost maturity of fruits is the next step to putrefaction. Hence they are de- 

 stroyed before stony or other particles can have time enough to impregnate them : 

 and this is exactly the case with the flesh of animals of every kind. The husks 

 and hard calyces of fruits, as well as their stones, are also susceptible of petri- 

 faction. 



If these fruits, now produced, are antediluvian, one would be apt to imagine 

 they in some measure point out, with Dr. Woodward, the time of year in which 

 the deluge began ; which he thinks was in May : and yet this very opinion is 

 liable to some objections ; because though fruits capable of being petrified, from 

 their green state, may be pretty well formed in May here, as well as in the same 

 latitude elsewhere, in favour of this opinion ; yet the stones of fruits are found 

 fossil so perfect, as to make one imagine they were very ripe when deposited in 

 the places where they are discovered ; which would induce us to think the deluge 

 happened nearer autumn, unless we could think them the productions of more 

 southern latitudes, where perhaps their fruits are brought to perfection before 

 ours are well formed. 



The following observation of Dr. Mason, Woodwardian professor, is well 

 worth notice. It regards the impressions of fishes upon slate. Now there are 

 several kinds of slate, which have such impressions on them : in some there re- 

 mains only the bare impression, without any part of the fish ; in others the scales 

 only, but retaining the entire form of the animal ; and in others no part ad- 

 heres to the slate but the skeleton, or part of it, most commonly the spine. He 

 says that he always observed, that the bones are never seen but on the grey or 



