146 FOOD AND HAIR. 



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the results I have obtained are of some interest, and that they will help 

 you to a more complete investigation. 



" The substance you placed in my hands contains two different sets of 

 fragments of wood, readily distinguishable by their color, and by their 

 different states of preservation. 



" Those of a reddish hue are very little changed, and may be clearly 

 made out to belong to the coniferous tribe. The transverse sections exhibit 

 the structure as well as those of a recent wood would do. The longitudinal 

 show the borders of the woody fibres less clearly defined, and the glandular 

 markings are less obvious than in a fresh piece of wood ; but still the 

 structure is very well preserved, and I make little doubt that a similar 

 examination of your existing conifers will serve to identify its nearest, if not 

 its actual, representative. 



" The blacker fragments are quite a different wood. They have under- 

 gone a greater change by decomposition, and are much infiltrated with 

 carbonaceous matter. I have found it impossible, on account of their ten- 

 dency to disintegration, to cut slices as thin as I could wish; and I am 

 consequently unable to speak positively as to their origin. Moreover, the 

 type of structure is one with which I am not familiar, though I have seen 

 something like it in silicified woods. I hope that some of your own vege- 

 table anatomists will be able to discover its representative among the 

 American forests. The principal part of the black amorphous matter I 

 believe to be the product of the more advanced decomposition of this 

 wood." 



Bishop Madison, in a letter to Dr. B. S. Barton, describes the appearance 

 of what was considered to be food, such as "half-masticated reeds, twigs, 

 and grass or leaves," discovered in connection with the bones of a Mastodon, 



