Note 60 — Chapter III

Posth. Works, Lecture, Feb. 15, 1688. Hooke explained with considerable clearness the different modes wherein organic substances may become lapidified; and, among other illustrations, he mentions some silicified palm-wood brought from Africa, on which M. de la Hire had read a memoir to the Royal Academy of France (June, 1692), wherein he had pointed out, not only the tubes running the length of the trunk, but the roots at one extremity. De la Hire, says Hooke, also treated of certain trees found petrified in the "river that passes by Bakan, in the kingdom of Ava, and which has for the space of ten leagues the virtue of petrifying wood." It is an interesting fact that the silicified wood of the Irawadi should have attracted attention more than one hundred years ago. Remarkable discoveries have been made there in later times of fossil animals and vegetables, by Mr. Crawfurd and Dr. Wallich.—See Geol. Trans. vol. ii. part iii. p. 377, second series. De la Hire cites Father Duchatz, in the second volume of "Observations made in the Indies by the Jesuits."