[ 54 6 1 
« take fire, but has a fplendor like gagates. It is 
« found in the joints of the rock, and is taken out 
“ in laminae, or fplinters, of 3 or 4 inches thick.” 
Of the like kind is the ftratum of foflil wood near 
Thun in Swiflerland, mentioned by Schentzer, in 
his Itinera Alpina * j which he defcribes as lying 
under feveral ftrata of flints, clay, and afli coloured 
marie. Being expofed to the air, parts of it grew 
hard, and others broke to pieces. “ It is (he fays) 
“ obfervable of this foflil wood, that the trunks and 
<£ branches are not round, but comprefled; yet, in 
{< fome places, cloathed with their bark, and here 
“ and there adorned with their leaves. The wood 
<( is inflammable, making a ftrong fire, and ferves 
£t inftead of foflil coals.” The author fuppofes the 
compreflion of this flratum to be owing to the great 
fuperincumbent weight ; but others, he fays,, ima- 
gine it to be fo formed by nature, from clay, in the 
bowels of the earth. I would obferve here, that 
the cruftaceous appearance, fo common to thefe bi- 
tuminous foflils, might eafily be miftaken by this 
author for the bark of the tree, the fame appearance 
being obferved by Stelluti, in that of Umbria ; but 
it is not fo eafy to account for the leaves, which cer- 
tainly have no connection with a mineral fubftance. 
John George Liebnecht, in his Hajfta Jubterranea , 
quotes Pillingius’s treatife on bitumen and lignum 
fojjile , for the following defcription of a flratum 
of this latter kind. He fays, that at Meiflibitz, in 
the duchy of Altenburg in Saxony, there is a moun- 
tain, with a gradual afeent and fertile fummit, the 
* Quarto, 172.4. p. 604. 
s> 
outward 
