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old mine, were formerly found several buckets, and other wooden 
vessels, which were changed into stone. That these substances 
might, in these situations, acquire a certain degree of induration 
from the impregnation with various metallic substances, but parti- 
cularly with iron, is more probable than that they should have thus 
become really petrified. The influence of iron in thus forming an 
apparent petrifaction, is rendered sufficiently evident by the follow- 
ing account, by Mr. Edward King*. 
“ In the year 1745, the Fox man of war was unfortunately stranded 
on the east coast of Lothian, in Scotland, and there went to pieces ; 
and the wreck remained about three and thirty years under water : 
but this last year a violent storm from the north-east laid a part of 
it bare ; and several masses, consisting of iron, ropes, and balls, 
were found on the sands near the place, covered over with a very 
hard ochry substance, of the colour of iron, which^ adhered thereto 
so strongly, that it required great force to detach it from the frag- 
ments of the wreck. And, upon examination, this substance ap- 
peared to be sand, concreted and hardened into a kind of stone.”— 
The specimen which was laid before the Society, “ contained a piece 
of rope, adjoining to some iron ring, and probably had been tied 
thereto. The substance of the rope was very little altered; but 
the sand was so concreted round it, as to be as hard as a bit of rock, 
and retained very perfectly impressions of parts of the ring, just in 
the same manner as impressions of extraneous fossil bodies are often 
found in various kinds of strata. 
“ Now, considering these circumstances,” Mr. King says, » we 
may fairly’ conclude, in the first place, that there is on the coasts of 
this island, a continual progressive induration of masses of sand, and 
other matter, at the bottom of the ocean, somewhat in the same 
manner as there is at the bottom of the Adriatic sea, according to 
the account given by Dr. Donati. 
* Philosophical Transactions, vol. Ixxix. part i. p. 35. 
