209 
In a considerable stratum of fossil wood, discovered by M. Fon- 
taine, between Lyons and Strasburgh, several of the pieces were 
found to be incrusted with a pretty considerable quantity of a sub- 
stance, which he describes as resembling coarse and imperfect mastic, 
mixed’ with other substances, and adhering so strongly to the wood, 
as to be very difficult of separation. Among the fossil wood of 
Bovey, as well as among that of Munden, bitumen is also frequently 
found. rr* • 1 
From the observations already adduced, sufficient surely ap- 
pears to warrant the conclusion, that those substances, which are 
agreed by all to belong to the class of bitumens, are produced by 
a further advance of the same process by which peat is formed. 
By attending to the properties possessed by these substances, as 
already described, it must occur to you, that although they are 
actually of a distinctly different nature, they approach very nearly, 
in their chemical and physical qualities, to the vegetable oils and 
resins. _ i i 
A circumstance here also offers itself to our contemplation, tiul'^ 
admirable and interesting. A principle of action developes itself, 
totally new to our observation, and almost beyond our powers of 
comprehension ; since it presents to us substances, formed merely 
by chemical action, emulating in their nature and appearance some 
of those substances, which are only formed by the peculiar powers 
resulting from organization. 
In the living vegetable, substances are formed, from tasteless 
and inodorous materials, by the energies of vegetable life, which 
not only strongly affect the senses of taste and smell, but differ 
essentially in their properties from the substances from which they 
have been formed. So the bituminous fermentation, imitating the 
result of the operation of secretion, forms, from a mass of deac 
vegetable matter, substances nearly resembling, in most of thmr 
properties, the vegetable oils and resins, which perhaps may e 
