We have also with us the visible petrification of Wood in many waters, whereof so much as is covered with water converteth into stone; as much as is above it and in the air, retaineth the form of Wood, and continueth as before.
Most of our text books tell us that the petrification of wood is a replacement process.
The petrification of wood has never been studied sufficiently, and there are many questions for which satisfactory answers have not yet been advanced.
This ash was largely silica, the mineral which was later to be of major importance in the petrification of the wood.
One day the Major met a company of miners, and related to them the wonderful specimens of petrification seen by him that day.
But this is only an imperfect or erroneous representation of this subject; for, mortar does not become hard upon the principle of petrification adopted by our author.
This subject deserves the strictest attention; I propose it as a touchstone for every theory of petrification or perfect consolidation.
Therefore, a general theory of petrification or consolidation of mineral bodies must explain this distinct fact, and not suffer it any longer to remain a lusus naturae.
Petrification and consolidation, in some degree, may doubtless be performed, in certain circumstances, by means of the solution of calcareous earth; but the examples given by M.
But the consolidation of loose and incoherent things, gathered together at the bottom of the sea, and afterwards raised into rocks of various sorts, forms by far the greatest example of petrification or mineral operation of this globe.
He would be freed, for ever, from the petrification of the grey, cramping little city.
These, and other samples that might be given, prove that petrification is not uncommon in the vicinity of Cardiff, where our ten feet two and a half inches, and well proportioned, giant was found.
We passed a conical hill, by the roadside, which had thick deposits of gypsum on the south-east side of its base, while on the north-west side the process of petrification of the sand was fully illustrated.
A strange high pyramid of rock stood on our way, and the sides of the mountains, where cut by the water, showed the interesting process of petrification in its various stages in the strata of the mountains.
