called Scúre.in-Lappich; on the top of which is a vast heap of white stones like crystal, each of them larger than a man can throw, which strike fire like flint, and have the smell of sea-weed. On this mountain are found also oyster, scallop, and limpet-shells, though ten miles from any sea. Round this hill grows the sea pink, in Irish, teartag, having the taste and colour of that which grows on the sea banks.

The Pagan temples, or high places of idolatry, are still very numerous here; on the river side of Narden I reckoned 13 in two miles they are round, and at the west end have two high stones like pyramids; there is an outer and inner circle of lesser stones, and a round mote in the centre for the sacrifices. Another sort of them is only of earth, with a trench round about, and a mote in the middle. In many of these I find a round heap of stones with urns in them. It seems a different religion afterwards changed

these places of worship into burial places.

Lough Neagh.

[Phil. Tran. 1699.

Most of the ancient writers, who have treated of Ireland, have mentioned the peculiar qualities of Lough-neagh, of turning wood into stone; some of them* have gone so far as to say, that it would turn that part of the wood which was in the mud into iron; the part in the water into stone; while the part above water remained wood.

Some later writers, particularly Wm. Molyneux, Francis Nevil, and Edward Smyth, and from them the late Dr. Woodward †, and others, seem rather to think, that this petrifying quality does not lie so much in the lake itself, as in the ground near or about it.

Mr. Edward Smyth §, who enlarges most on this subject, and seems to have led the others, and drawn them into his opinion, tells us, "That no experiment or observation yet made, which he had heard of, could prove that this lough has really the quality of

* Boetius Hist. Gem. et Lap.-Orig.

+ Catal. of English Fossils, part 2, p. 19.-Orig.

Sir James Ware's Antiq. by Walt. Harris, p. 227. edit. 1747, folio,-Orig.

& Afterwards Bishop of Down. See Phil. Trans. No. 174.-Orig.

petrifying wood, or that the water does any way help or promote the petrification." He there gives an example of a gentleman of worth and credit, "who had fixed two stakes of holly in two dif ferent places of the lough, near that place where the upper-bann enters into it, and that the parts of the stakes which had been washed by the water for about nineteen years, yet remained there with out any alteration, or the least advance to petrifaction."

Another reason for his doubting of this quality is, "That though it is reported that the water has this virtue, especially where the black-water discharges itself into the lake, yet that as it seems evident, from the nature of liquid bodies, that any virtue received in one part must necessarily be diffused through the whole, at least in some degree; therefore, says he, there is good reason to believe, that the water is wholly destitute of this petrifying quality:" but a few lines lower he tells you, "That he had sufficient ground to conjecture, that other wood as well as holly had been petrified about this lough; because some fishermen, being tenants to a gentleman' from whom he had this account, told him, that they had found buried, in the mud of this lough, large trees, with all their branches and roots petrified; and some of that size, that they believed they could scarcely be drawn by a team of oxen; that they had broken off several branches as thick as a man's leg, and many thicker, but could not move the great trunk.”

He supposes Mr. Smyth, or the gentleman his friend, saw these branches, and was thereby convinced of their real petrification, as he was by the bulk of those trees of their being oak, and not holly; "because, says he, no other tree in that country, these excepted, grows to that vast size; at least it is certain that holly never does."

But how Mr. Smyth came to be convinced, that these trees were oak, and not holly, and yet was not convinced of the petrific quality in some parts of the lough, though these trees were found petrified in its mud, is amazing; for if a team of oxen could scarcely draw them from thence, it must be as hard to draw them from any adjacent ground (where they must have grown, lain, and be petrified) into the mud of the lake, where they were afterwards found: for it must be supposed, that either these trees grew on the banks of the lake, and, through age, or any other accident, fell into the water or mud, and were there petrified; or that, with great labour

and expense, they were brought into it from some adjacent ground, after their actual petrification, which is hardly to be supposed.

Mr. Smyth tells you further, that "Two gentlemen of the north of Ireland where this lough lies, had told him, that they had seen the same body, partly wood, and partly stone; but the only reason for thinking so, being the diversity of colours, which might well enough proceed from several degrees of petrification, we may properly think them deceived; for they made no experiment on that part which they reputed wood. The bark is never found petrified, as he was informed by a diligent inquirer; but often somewhat rotten about the stone, answerable to the bark."

Mr. Smyth contradicts himself no less in his last supposition, than he did in the first. His friends assured him, that they had seen one or more of the Lough neagh stones partly wood and partly stone; but they were deceived, he says: the diversity of colours, by which they judged one part of the stone by its colour to be wood, and the other part likewise, by its colour different from the other, to be stone, were no more than different degrees of petrification: What are we to understand by these different degrees of petrifaction? by this something rotten about the stone often found? if not, that some part of the wood was actually turned into stone, some other part in a degree less petrified, and some other part not petrified at all, as these gentlemen assured him: the diversity of colours, seeing and feeling, was enough to convince them, and to determine the point.

"The earth, says the great Robert Boyle, harbours different kinds of petrescent liquors, and many of them impregnated with one sort of mineral or other." There are no springs, no waters, but are more or less impregnated with such mineral and saline particles; which appears from the most limpid; which after evaporation, still in the residuum, gives some particles of salt, with some stony and mineral ones.

Mr. Smyth has found by experience, that petrifying springs are generally impregnated, some with calcareous and particles of other stones, and others with ferrugineous and vitriolic particles. Those of the stony or calcareous kind, when they drop on wood, or other vegetables, act on them for the most part by incrustation, having different degrees and periods for their respective incrustations and

* R. Boyle, of the Origin and Virtues of Gems.—Orig.

coalitions, which yet adhere close to each other: they seldom turn the wood into stone; but, sticking to the wood, plants, &c. coagulate on it, and by degrees cover it with a crust of a whitish substance of different thickness, by which the wood is immerged or wrapped in a stony coat, which, if it be broken before the wood be rotten, you find it in the heart of the stone or incrustation, as is seen in those petrifications at Maudling meadows in Gloucestershire, at Hermitage near Dublin, and many other places: or, if the wood be rotten, you will find a cavity in the stone, which very often is filled by a subsequent incrustation or petrification; the stony parti cles then taking the place of the rotten wood.

Sometimes indeed, these waters, permeating the pores of the wood either longitudinally or transversely, insinuate themselves into them, fill them up with their stony particles, swell, and, by their burning or corroding quality proceeding from the limestone, destroy the wood, and assume the shape of the plant, the place of which they have taken.

These petrifications generally ferment with acids and spirit of vitriol, and by calcination may be reduced to lime.

Ferrugineous or metallic petrifying waters mostly act by insinuating their finest particles through the pores and vessels of the wood, or other vegetables, without increasing their bulk, or altering their texture, though they greatly increase their specific gravity: and such is the petrified wood found in or on the shores of Lough. neagh; for it does not show any outward addition or coalition of forcing matter adhering to, or covering it (except in some places, where a thin slimy substance, taken notice of hereafter, is sometimes observed.) but preserve the grain and vestigia of wood; all the alteration is in the weight and closeness, by the mineral particles pervading and filling the pores of the wood: these stones, or rather wood-stones, do not make the least effervescence with spirit or oil of vitriol, nor aquafortis; which shows that they are impregnated with metalline particles, or stony ones, different from the calcareous kind; and may be the reason why the petrified wood, mentioned by N. Grew *, made no ebullition, at which it seems he was sur. prised. These stones he could not reduce into lime by the most * Reg. Soc. Mus. p. 270.-Orig.

+ This contradicts an observation of Mr. John Beaumont, (Phil. Trans, No. 129), That mostly mineral stones will stir with acids; whereas all those that I have tried, whether English or Irish, did not at all stir with acids,—Origa

intense fire, nor, with proper ingredients, procure a vetrification or fusion*.

Though mines have not perhaps been discovered near the lough, there is reason to believe that there are such in its neighbourhood, from the great quantity of iron-stones found on its shores, and places adjacent to it, and from the yellowish ochre and clay to be met with in many places near it. Of these irou-stones, which are very ponderous, outwardly of an ocherish yellow colour, and inwardly of a reddish brown, he calcined many, and found the powder of all to yield strongly to the magnet. Gerald Boate † mentions an iron mine, in the county of Tyrone, not far from the lough, and such others at the foot of Slew-Gallen mountains.

That mines are generated and found in the bowels of hills and mountains, is obvious to any that have the least knowledge of metallurgy; and that springs also proceed from mountains, is no less obvious; therefore should a spring happen in the bowels of any of these mountains to run through a vein of mineral of any kind whatever, it will wash and dilute some parts of such mineral, im. pregnate itself with the unctuous, saline, and metallic particles of such mines, and convey them along with its water; and if in its way, whether under-ground, or at its issuing out of the cliffs of a mountain, of the sides of a river, or of the lake in question; or whether it rises under water, in the middle of such a river or lake in any particular place, and in its course meets with wood, vegetables, or any other lax bodies (lodged in the mud or gravel), whose pores, by the natural heat of the mineral streams, or any other accident, being open and duly prepared, these metallic molecula and saline particles will penetrate through, insinuate and lodge themselves in the pores and vessels of such wood, &c. fill them up, and, by degrees, turn them into stone ‡; "There being some of these lapidescent juices of so fine a substance, yet of so petrifying a virtue, that they will penetrate and petrify bodies of very different kinds, and yet scarcely, if at all, visibly increase their bulk, or change their shape and colour."

Stones of the calcareous kind turn to lime by calcination, and ferment with acids; but other kinds, such as slate, fire-stone, free-stone, rag, grill, &c. will do neither, as experience has hitherto testified.Orig.

+ Nat. Hist. of Ireland, Dub. 1726.-Orig.

Rob. Boyle of Gems, p. 124, 8va-Orig.

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