In this place I have onely time to hint an _Hypothesis_, which,
if God permit me life and opportunity, I may elsewhere prosecute, improve
and publish. In the mean time, before I finish this Discourse, I must not
forget to acquaint the Reader, that having had the liberty granted me of
making some trials on a piece of _Lignum fossile_ shewn to the Royal
Society, by the eminently Ingenious and Learned Physician, Doctor _Ent_,
who receiv'd it for a Present from the famous _Ingenioso Cavalliero de
Pozzi_, it being one of the fairest and best pieces of _Lignum fossile_ he
had seen; Having (I say) taken a small piece of this Wood, and examin'd it,
I found it to burn in the open Air almost like other Wood, and insteed of a
resinous smoak or fume, it yielded a very bituminous one, smelling much of
that kind of sent: But that which I chiefly took notice of, was, that
cutting off a small piece of it, about the bigness of my Thumb, and
charring it in a _Crucible_ with Sand, after the manner I above prescrib'd,
I found it infinitely to abound with the smaller sort of pores, so
extreamly thick, and so regularly perforating the substance of it
long-ways, that breaking it off a-cross, I found it to look very like an
Honey-comb; but as for any of the second, or bigger kind of pores, I could
not find that it had any; so that it seems, whatever were the cause of its
production, it was not without those small kind of pores which we have
onely hitherto found in Vegetable bodies: and comparing them with the pores
which I have found in the Charcoals that I by this means made of several
other kinds of Wood, I find it resemble none so much as those of Fire, to
which it is not much unlike in grain also, and several other proprieties.
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