Dr. Buckland's Supplementary Remarks on the supposed Power of the 

 Waters of the Irawadi, to convert Wood to Stone. 



London, October 29th, 1828. 



I HAVE this (lay seen Dr. Wallich, and informed him of the Postscript added 

 to my Paper on the fossil wood and bones from the Burman Empire^ respecting 

 the statement in Lieut. Alexander's Travels, that the teak pillars under a build- 

 ing near Prome had become petrified in the space often years, by the waters 

 of the Irawadi during the monsoons. Dr. Wallich replied that, when he was 

 at Rangoon with Mr. Crawfurd, they were informed by a British general 

 officer, that there was at Prome an elephant shed, the pillars of which were 

 converted to stone at their base. On arriving at Prome, they went to see 

 this shed accompanied by the other gentlemen of the mission, and found its 

 position to be above the flood level of the Irawadi, and that not one of its 

 pillars had in any part undergone the smallest change from the natural state 

 of wood. 



In this case, therefore, as in that reported by Lieut, Alexander, it is pro- 

 bable that the officers had received without suspicion the current opinion of 

 the natives, the universality of which may be referred to the constant use they 

 make of fossil wood for weights and landing steps from the river. But the 

 investigations of Mr. Crawfurd and Dr. Wallich seem decisive upon the sub- 

 ject : they were fully aware of the popular belief, that the soil of the country, 

 as well as the waters of the Irawadi, have the property of rapidly converting 

 wood to stone, and during the whole journey their attention was awake to 

 every opportunity of verifying or refuting this opinion. Now I am informed 

 by Dr. Wallich, that the bed of the Irawadi, all the way from Rangoon to 

 Ava, was so thickly set with piles of wood that had formed the foundations of 

 ancient temples, pagodas and sheds, that once at least, and sometimes more 

 than once in every day, they were found to affiard the steam-boat a more 

 ready supply of substantial fuel than could be obtained from the shore ; 

 — in one case they were taken from water so deep that the steam-boat lay 

 alongside of them during the operation of their extraction. A very large 

 number of these pillars must, therefore, have been burnt during the voyage ; 



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