Next, they thereby so lock up and fetter the parts of the Wood, that the
fire cannot easily make them flie away, but the action of the fire upon
them is onely able to _Char_ those parts, as it were, like a piece of Wood,
if it be clos'd very fast up in Clay, and kept a good while red-hot in the
fire, will by the heat of the fire be charr'd and not consum'd, which may,
perhaps, also be somewhat of the cause, why the _petrify'd_ substance
appear'd of a dark brown colour after it had been burnt.
By this _intrusion_ of the _petrifying_ particles, this substance also
becomes hard and _friable_; for the smaller pores of the Wood being
perfectly wedg'd, and stuft up with those stony particles, the small parts
of the Wood have no places or pores into which they may slide upon bending,
and consequently little or no flexion or yielding at all can be caus'd in
such a substance.
The remaining particles likewise of the Wood among the stony particles, may
keep them from cracking and flying when put into the fire, as they are very
apt to do in a Flint.
Nor is Wood the onely substance that may by this kind of _transmutation_ be
chang'd into stone; for I my self have seen and examin'd very many kinds of
substances, and among very credible Authours, we may meet with Histories of
such _Metamorphoses_ wrought almost on all kind of substances, both
_Vegetable_ and _Animal_, which Histories, it is not my business at
present, either to relate, or _epitomise_, but only to set down some
Observation I lately made on several kind of _petrify'd_ Shels, found about
_Keinsham_, which lies within four or five miles of _Bristol_, which are
commonly call'd _Serpentine-stones.
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