54- The 3\(atural Hijlory 
tilia^ is covered over with afoft ftone ; and yet fo, thatbfoken 
off, the grafs appeared (for any thing 1 could fee) as frelh and 
green as any other not cru/IeJ, nothing of the blade being altered 
or impaired, which is the neareft incruftation I ever yet faw : for 
though fomc of thefe petrified blades of grafs hung down at leaft 
a foot in length, yet flipping them ofF from about the root, I 
could take the grafs by the end, and pull it clean out as it were 
from a flieath of ftone, fo little of cohefion had the one to the 
other : the reafon of which I guefs may be, that the fores of the 
Plant poiTeft with its own juice, and already furnifli'd with a 
congenial faltt might well refiife^3!^/z/^w//7/o^ ones, 
27. And yet far otherwife is it, but juft on the other fide the 
River at North- Ajhton^ in a Field norih-we§i of the Church, where 
either xht petrifying water, or plants, are fo different from what 
before I had found them ztSommerton^ that though there too the 
work be begun by adhefion^ yet the roots of rujhes^gra^^mof^^ iyc, 
are in a while fo altogether eaten away, that nothing remains af- 
ter petrification is compleated, but the figures of thofe Plants 
with fome augmentation. 
28. And -petrifications this kind I frequently meet with, 
that happen on things of much different fubftances, as Jhells^ nuts^ 
leaves of trees^ and many times on their moft Ugneoui^ms, In 
the PariCb of S' Clements in the Suburbs of Oxford^ about a quarter 
of amilediftant, on the right hand of the firft way that turns 
eaji-ward owl Marjion-lane^ there is a ditch, the water whereof 
incruftates the fticks that fall out of the hedge, and fome other 
matters it meets with there : but this is fo inconfiderable, that I 
fliould not have mentioned it, but that it has been taken notice of 
by fo many before, that my filence herein would have looked like 
a defed. Much better for this purpofe is the water of a Pump 
at the Crofl'Inn near Carfax^ in the City it felf, which not only 
incrufiates boards fallen into it, but inferts it felf fo intimately in- 
to the pores of the wood, that by degrees rotting it away, there 
is in the end the fucceffion of a perfeft ftone ; and that not with- 
out fome courfe reprefentation of the very lineaments of the 
wood it felf : Which though I muft confefs to be of fomwhat a 
higher kind of petrification ih'm incruftation^ yet it being wholly 
performed by accefTion of parts, and continual intrufion into the 
open pores of rotten wood, will not amount to the warranty of a 
different y/-eaV^. 29. A 
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