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A coal, resembling tbe Bovey Coal, has also, according to the 
account of Mr. Barrow, in his Travels into Southern Africa, been 
found at the Cape of Good Hope. 
Pillingen informs us, that upon distilling the fossil wood of Meiz- 
libizen, he obtained from it, as well as from- the bituminous earth, 
which accompanied it, nothing which appeared to be derived from 
vegetable matter. With a gentle heat, on sand, a water came 
over, tasting of bitumen, and a limpid and penetrating oil, like oil 
of amber. On increasing the heat, he obtained a more foetid, thick, 
and sulphurous oil ; with a slightly acid, but pungently smelling 
water. By still farther increasing the heat, he obtained a most 
thick, black, stinking oil, with a turbid sulphurous water, having 
an acid and disagreeable taste. With an intense naked fire, a light 
brown, flocculent, sulphurous, or rather, he says, a saline bitter sub- 
limate arose ; leaving a hard clinkery matter at the bottom of the 
retort ; from every hundred pounds of which, he assures us, he was 
able to obtain nearly an ounce and a half of the purest silver. 
Dr. Milles also subjected the Bovey Coal to analysis, by which, 
he says, if any doubt could remain of its being a mineral substance, 
it must be completely removed. 
From one pound of Bovey Coal, of the woody kind, he obtained 
on sand, four ounces and a half of water, of a bituminous smell and 
taste ; nearly four ounces of a turbid, whitish, bituminous liquor, 
of an intolerable foetid smell, and extremely pungent to the tongue ; 
and about two drachms of a heavy bituminous matter, which would 
not mix with the former liquor, but sunk entirely to the bottom, 
without leaving any light oil floating on the bituminous liquor. 
There remained in the retort about seven ounces of a very black 
powder, which had the same bituminous smell, and not very heavy ; 
some of which being put on a red hot iron, emitted a little smoke, 
but no flame. The ashes of this fossil yielded no salt on being 
boiled in water. 
