Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 001.djvu/107

 were invited to look upon an Ox, that had for two or three days almost continually held his Neck streight up, and was dead of a Disease, the Owner could not conjecture at; whereupon, the parts belonging to the Neck and Throat, being open'd, they found, to their wonder, the Aspera Arteria in its very Trunk all stuff'd with Grass, as if it had been thrust there by main force: which gives a just cause of marvelling and inquiring, both how such a quantity of Grass should get in there; and how, being there, such an Animal could live with it so long.

The same Searcher of Nature, that was alledged in the immediately precedent Observations, did impart also the following, in another Letter from Oxford, where he saith:

I was a while since visited by a Gentleman, who tells me, That he met with a Place in these parts of England, where, though there be no petrifying Spring (for that I particularly asked) Wood is turned into Stone in the Sandy Earth it self, after a better manner then by any Water I have yet seen: For I had the Curiosity to go to look upon pieces of Wood, he brought thence, and hope for the opportunity of making some tryals to examine the matter a little further, then I have yet been able to do. Thus far that Letter.

Since which time, He was pleased to give this further Information of the same matter, with a Mantissa of some other Particulars, belonging to this Subject, in these Words.

I was lately making some Tryals with the petrifyed Wood I told you off, which I finde to be a very odde substance, wonderfully hard and fixed. If I had opportunity to Re-print the History of Fluidity and Firmness, I could adde divers things about Stones, that perhaps would not be disliked; and I hope, if God vouchsafe me a little leisure,