DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70301#0042
30
kirby’s wonderful museum.
many, Was desirous that some steps should be taken for de-
ciding this question. The Chevalier de Baillu, director of
his cabinet of natural history, and some other naturalists con-
ceived the idea of making researches which might throw
some light on the subject. As modern geographers and his-
torians agree in stating that certain pillars seen in the Danube,
in Servia, near Belgrade, are the remains of the bridge which
Trajan constructed over that river, it was presumed that these
pillars, having been preserved for so many ages, must be pe-
trified, and that they would furnish some information respect-
ing the time which nature employs in changing wood into
stone. The emperor wishing to satisfy his curiosity, ordered
his ambassador at the court of Constantinople to ask per-
mission to take up from the Danube one of the pillars of
Trajan’s bridge. It was granted, and one of the pillars was
accordingly taken up, from which it appeared that the petri-
faction had advanced no farther than three quarters of an
inch in the space of fifteen hundred years.
\Bncyclop. Brit, vol xvi. p. 239-
There are, however, certain waters in which this transmu-
tation is more speedily accomplished. A letter, dated Kir-
caldy, December, 1759, and inserted in the Scots Magazine,
gives the remarks made, in 1750, by a Scotch gentleman on
the petrifying quality of the sea-water on the coast of France.
Being at Boulogne, during the summer of the last mentioned
year, he observed that the British Channel, which washes the
bottom of a hill near that place, (commonly called Caesar’s
Fort, from a Roman encampment still visible on it, said to
have been constructed by Julius Caesar when he invaded
Britain,) had worn in through a great part of the hill, which
consists mostly of mixed sand, with about three or four feet
of a strong blueish clay soil above. As the sandy part is
washed away, the clay falls down in large masses, and, as
the inhabitants there affirm, is petrified by the salt water. In
kirby’s wonderful museum.
many, Was desirous that some steps should be taken for de-
ciding this question. The Chevalier de Baillu, director of
his cabinet of natural history, and some other naturalists con-
ceived the idea of making researches which might throw
some light on the subject. As modern geographers and his-
torians agree in stating that certain pillars seen in the Danube,
in Servia, near Belgrade, are the remains of the bridge which
Trajan constructed over that river, it was presumed that these
pillars, having been preserved for so many ages, must be pe-
trified, and that they would furnish some information respect-
ing the time which nature employs in changing wood into
stone. The emperor wishing to satisfy his curiosity, ordered
his ambassador at the court of Constantinople to ask per-
mission to take up from the Danube one of the pillars of
Trajan’s bridge. It was granted, and one of the pillars was
accordingly taken up, from which it appeared that the petri-
faction had advanced no farther than three quarters of an
inch in the space of fifteen hundred years.
\Bncyclop. Brit, vol xvi. p. 239-
There are, however, certain waters in which this transmu-
tation is more speedily accomplished. A letter, dated Kir-
caldy, December, 1759, and inserted in the Scots Magazine,
gives the remarks made, in 1750, by a Scotch gentleman on
the petrifying quality of the sea-water on the coast of France.
Being at Boulogne, during the summer of the last mentioned
year, he observed that the British Channel, which washes the
bottom of a hill near that place, (commonly called Caesar’s
Fort, from a Roman encampment still visible on it, said to
have been constructed by Julius Caesar when he invaded
Britain,) had worn in through a great part of the hill, which
consists mostly of mixed sand, with about three or four feet
of a strong blueish clay soil above. As the sandy part is
washed away, the clay falls down in large masses, and, as
the inhabitants there affirm, is petrified by the salt water. In