more brittle than cannel coal, or jet. They likewise all of them 
agree, pretty nearly, in the same properties. In water they sink ; 
they are all inflammable, but consume slowly in the fire ; emitting a 
somewhat unpleasant fume, not unlike that of bitumen, only fainter. 
A coal is found in the cliffs, near the castle, in the isle of Port- 
land, which has been thought to be similar to the coal which we 
have been hitherto considering. The Kimeridge Coal, so called 
from the place where it is dug, and which appears in most of 
the cliffs of the isle of Purbeck, from St. Aldhelm’s Chapel to East 
Lulworth, and at Ovington, opposite to that part of Portland where 
the coal is dug, is also supposed to be of the .same kind. But on 
reviewing the description of these coals, which are said to be very 
hard, and to shiver into pieces like slate, when exposed to the air, I 
am more disposed to suspect, that this fossil is rather a bituminous 
schistus, than a species of the Bovey Coal. 
Hoffman appears to describe a similar species of fossil wood, 
found in the neighbourhood of Fischausen, &c. where they dig for 
amber. The upper stratum is sand, under it a bed of clay, and then 
a woody stratum, consisting of a substance like old wood, but in- 
flammable ; under this, he says, was a vitriolic mineral ; and lastly a 
bed of sand, in which a great quantity of amber was found*. 
Of this kind too, very probably, was the fossil wood described by 
Caesalpinus, as found in the kingdom of Naples, in a hill near the 
city of St. John. Part of this, he says, is formed of an incrusted 
inflammable stone, of a brown or ash colour, resembling decayed 
wood. This, he says, the inhabitants employ for their fires. As it 
burns it becomes black, like half-burnt wood, and at length passes 
into cinders. 
Mr. Fontaine discovered a subterraneous forest, at the bottom of 
the chain of mountains between Lyons and Strasburgh. Some of 
* Observationes Physico-Chem. lib. ii. p. 199. 
