It would be
too long a work to describe the several kinds of pores which I met withall,
and by this means discovered in several other Vegetable bodies; nor is it
my present design to expatiate upon Instances of the same kind, but rather
to give a Specimen of as many kinds as I have had opportunity as yet of
observing, reserving the prosecution and enlarging on particulars till a
more fit opportunity; and in prosecution of this design, I shall here add:
* * * * *
Observ. XVII. _Of _Petrify'd wood_, and other _Petrify'd bodies_._
Of this sort of substance, I observ'd several pieces of very differing
kinds, both for their outward shape, colour, grain, _texture_, hardness,
&c. some being brown and redish; others gray, like a Hone; others black,
and Flint-like: some soft, like a Slate or Whetstone, others as hard as a
Flint, and as brittle. That which I more particular examin'd, was a piece
about the bigness of a mans hand, which seem'd to have been a part of some
large tree, that by rottenness had been broken off from it before it began
to be _petrify'd_.
And indeed, all that I have yet seen, seem to have been rotten Wood before
the petrifaction was begun; and not long since, examining and viewing a
huge great _Oak_, that seem'd with meer age to be rotten as it stood, I was
very much confirm'd in this opinion; for I found, that the grain, colour,
and shape of the Wood, was exactly like this _petrify'd_ substance; and
with a _Microscope_, I found, that all those _Microscopical_ pores, which
in sappy or firm and sound Wood are fill'd with the natural or innate
juices of those Vegetables, in this they were all empty, like those of
_Vegetables charr'd_; but with this difference, that they seem'd much
larger then I have seen any in _Char-coals_; nay, even then those of Coals
made of great blocks of Timber, which are commonly call'd _Old-coals_.
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