Geological Gleanings. 273 



ture, had a specific gravity exceeding that of water, in which they 

 readily sunk, from their having undergone an incipient stage of im- 

 pregnation with some of the earthy products of the soil. Nume- 

 rous pine cones and a few acorns were also found in the same state 

 of silicifieation. The trunks apparently extended a considerable 

 distance into the interior of the hill, and were bituminous and fri- 

 able. Many ofthosewhich wereembedded crumbled away on being 

 struck with a pickaxe, which readily found its way into any part 

 of them, rendering their removal impossible ; some of them were 

 in such a state of carbonization as to approach lignite in character. 

 The whole conveyed the idea of the hill being entirely composed 

 of wood. As far as our excavations were carried, nothing else 

 was met with, except the loamy soil in which they were embedded; 

 but the decay of the wood in some places appeared to form its own 

 soil. The petrifactions, with numerous pieces of wood, were found 

 strewn everywhere over the surface of this and many of the con- 

 tiguous hills. Many specimens of these were obtained, varying 

 from one to fourteen inches in length, the longest not exceeding 

 five or six in circumference ; they consisted of portions of the 

 branches of trees. Some of them were impregnated with iron 

 (brown haematite), had a distinct metallic tinkle when struck, 

 and were heavier than other pieces, without the metallic impreg- 

 nation or sound ; they were simply silicified, the sand enteriug 

 into the composition of the soil being silicious or quartzose. 

 Several smaller pieces of fresh wood were also found strewn about, 

 which had not been, perhaps, subject to the petrifying influence 

 of the water. The numerous small rills which issued from the 

 interior, similar to those I had seen in the morning, flowed over 

 the surface, and the constituents of the water, largely impregnated 

 as it was with iron and sulphur, indicated from whence the metal- 

 lic agency in the petrifaction was derived ; this also possessed a 

 dull yellowish-brown discoloration of the sulphur, (? oxide of iron,) 

 and the stones everywhere over which the water flowed were 

 coated with the same. 



Director (Dr. Carte) I am indebted for a knowledge of this fact ; who has 

 also kindly informed me, that he submitted it to the examination of Drs. 

 Steele and Joseph Hooker, both of whom pronounced it to be coniferous 

 wood. The latter thought it of the white pine species ; and one of the 

 semifossilized cones has been pronounced by Dr. Harvey, Professor of 

 Botany, Trinity College, Dublin, to be similar to the present Spruce of 

 North America-." 



