Memoirs for the ingenious. : Containing several curious observations in philosophy, mathematicks, physick, philology, and other arts and sciences. In miscellaneous letters. / By J. De La Crose, E. A. P. January, 1693. To be continued monthly. Vol. I.

Date:
1693
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs for the ingenious. : Containing several curious observations in philosophy, mathematicks, physick, philology, and other arts and sciences. In miscellaneous letters. / By J. De La Crose, E. A. P. January, 1693. To be continued monthly. Vol. I. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    • January, i6?y 31 The piece of tree wood, repreftnted by the fecond Flint, is not only made up of right fibres as the former, but from its Bark fprouc Roots, thick as the little finger, about 3 inches in length, and co¬ vered with a thin skin, that includes a great many fmall bores as fine as a hair. In the middle of the little fibres, that make up the body of each root, is a woody firing, that may be called its kerne], which is of the thicknefs of a third of the little finger, hollow and full of foft marrow. ^ , . , . r Now he pretends that all thefe different parts are plainly to be keen in the fecond Flint, that befides the long and right fibres that make up its body, the roots, which for the moft part appear as feparated from one another, may be eafily diftingufthed; that the fmall fibres of each root have been turn’d into a blackifh and (Inning Flint, but the kernel into a whitifti and dark; and that the marrow wherewith it was fill’d before its petrification being dry’d up, this kernel remained empty and hollow as a Pipe in moft of the roots •, which hollow- nefs he aferibes to the fame caufe that had excavated the luppoled fibres of the former Flint. , - . ,. This Defcription feems pretty accurate, the refembiance very great, and the obfervations ingenious, but when all is done, 'tis pity that he who brought both the Stones and the pieces of f almtiee, from Africa into Frame, was no Philofopher, and has given us no account of the place he found them in, whether in a River, or on the dry ground, as alfo of the conftitution of the Climate and Soil round about it: for till then I do not fee that we are futficiently en¬ abled to decide the grand queftion, Whether this likenefs is an imi¬ tation or a transformation of Nature ? - . . , Our Author however thinks to have found an incontefiable Proof of his Opinion in a Paffage that he quotes out of the Pfyfical and Mathematical Obfervations of F. du Chatz, where he fays,. That tire V River that goes through the Town of Bakan, in the Kingdom of “ Ava, has in this place the virtue of petrifying Wood during ten lj Leagues; that he has feen there confiderabl'e Trees, petrify*d to “ the very furface of the Water, whereof the reft was but dry ‘‘Wood; and that this petrify’d Wood was as hard as. a “ Flint. - Both F. du Chatzfind Mr. De la Wire would have oblig’d us, had they taught us the nature of this River Water, which, if what is related be true, muft undoubtedly be mineral: for fo far I conceive this tranfmutation pcflible, to. that Wood being foft and porous, and the Corpufdesof Minerals, as Vitriol, Marcaftites, and the like, hard and piercing, creep into the Pores and inward part of the Wood,
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