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exuding sulphur and alum in a pulverulent form. To prevent this 
decomposition and destruction of his more valuable specimens, he 
adopted the practice of washing olf the salts from them, by two or 
three times in the day pouring boiling water over them ; and thus he 
had preserved some for the space of three or four years. 
The quantity of this fossil wood appears to have been truly pro- 
digious. The stratum, of which we have hitherto spoken, was about 
twenty feet in depth, the bottom of it resting on a stratum of stone, 
about a foot in thickness. On piercing this, another stratum of 
fossil wood was found : to discover the depth of which several at- 
tempts were made ; but although the borers passed to the depth of 
thirty feet, they did not reach to the bottom of this stratum. Hence 
it was only ascertained, that the fossil wood was at least fifty feet 
deep ; since they were unable to determine to how much greater a 
depth the stratum reached. A difference was observable in the two 
strata, which merits our particular notice ; the fossil wood contained 
in the upper stratum, was of a light brown colour ; but that in the 
inferior stratum, was of a much darker brown, verging upon black. 
The earth, which lay over the fossil wood, not only had the same 
brown colour for more than half a foot in thickness, but was im- 
pregnated with similar sulphurous and aluminous particles, and even 
yielded almost as good fuel. 
Taking advantage of a passage which had been dug into the 
body of fossil wood, the professor passed nearly two hundred feet 
in length within it, so that the roof, floor, and sides of the place, in 
which he stood, were entirely composed, of what he esteemed, a 
mass of vegetable ruins. Here the water, which had insinuated 
itself in the top of the mountain, was found dripping through the 
roof; and sulphurous and aluminous matter were found to exist, 
in an equal proportion with that which pervaded the other parts of 
this mass. Between the fossil wood was seen, in some places, a 
vein of hard, blackish bitumen, possessing almost the hardness and 
