54 
considered as fossil ebony. Referring to a certain statue formed of 
ebony, he says, he heard from a man of Cyprus, exceedingly learned 
in the properties of plants, that ebony never put forth either leaves 
or fruits, nor ever showed a trunk above ground. Agricola*, also 
notices this supposed particularity of ebony, adding, that its external 
appearance is similar to that of jet; from which, however, it differs 
in being but little affected, whilst jet burns, and is consumed, in the 
fire. A piece of this kind of ebony, he says, was once presented to 
him as a branch of black coral. 
There is, perhaps, no part of the known world, in which the 
mineralized remains of trees have not been discovered. According 
to Agricolaf , very large trunks of firs have been dug up in different 
parts of Germany, turned, with their bark, into stone ; and having 
their crevices filled with golden coloured pyrites, or marcasites. 
Similar trees, with branches, have also been dug up near Cracow, 
which, when cut into the form of whet-stones, were sent as presents 
by the barons, who held the territory, to Ferdinand the king of 
Bohemia. He relates, that he' himself saw, in a pool near the castle 
of Robestein, in Misena, many trunks of trees, which were changed 
into stone. In the earth from which the alum is obtained, near 
Hildesheim, oak trees were found converted to stone ; and in the 
same country, near to the castle of Mariaburg, he mentions a hill 
full of logs in a petrified state. These are very long, and seem as 
if they had been placed together in heaps ; their stony hardness 
being rendered sufficiently evident, on being struck by a piece of 
iron, or another stone. In the aluminous earth of Hildesheim is 
also found the fossil wood, which, as has been just observed, has 
been considered as fossil ebony. 
Agricola, whose actual researches were such as furnished him with 
numerous opportunities of determining, that this astonishing change 
of wood into stone did actually take place, was at the same time 
* Agricola, De Natura Fossiliutn, lib. tiii. p. 324. Basilese, mdlviii. f Loc. cit. 
