167 



The upper specimen is nearly in the state in which we 

 find very rotten wood sometimes above ground, and even 

 in parts of living trees, with an earthy, fossil-like ap- 

 pearance. The grain and fracture of the wood still remain, 

 with the fragments so sharp, that were it not for the colour 

 and dull earthy appearance, it would seem but little altered : 

 it is, however, so soft as to rub away under the linger like 

 Roman Ochre, or the brown inside of the bark of some old 

 firs. It burns at first with a flame, then with much smoke 

 and an odour like the Resinous Bitumen, retaining a .-park 

 for some time, almost like Touchwood, 



The lower specimen is nearly of the same nature as the 

 above, with a more rotten appearance, and so soft as to 

 have been pierced with roots like an earth ; which also some- 

 times happens to the rotten parts of living trees, and I have 

 seen their own branches shoot roots into such decayed parts. 

 But what is very remarkable, the two broad surfaces of this 

 specimen have exactly the appearance of having been burnt, 

 so as to be a perfect charcoal ; and neither these fibres nor 

 the inner part seem to have been scorched*. Mr. Hatchett 

 remarks that tc the half-charred appearance of Bovey Coal 

 cannot be adduced as any proof that the original vegetable 

 bodies have been exposed to the partial effects of subter- 

 raneous fire." Now at first sight this specimen would seem 

 to some an evidence to the contrary ; but Nature coincides 

 greatly with Mr. Hatchett, and in the general acceptation 

 of our idea of water, there is little doubt but it has been, 

 according to its nature, the cause of the effect here pro- 

 duced. We must remember that water is a very active 

 agent, and is never quiet where there is the smallest room for 



* Whether either of these specimens contains the alkaline principle or 

 hot I do not know. I am happy, however, to find that Mr. Hatchett, in his 

 Analysis of the Iceland Schisms and Bovey Coal, Phil. Trans, for 1804, p. 399, 

 found that the alkaline principle was wanting, as I asserted to be the case 

 in the wood-like part of Newcastle Coal. Brit. Mirh tab. ICO. 



