Les
bois petrifies se trouvent jusques dans les collines de sable de la
plaine; l'on en tire, entr'autres, des hauteurs sablonneuses aux
environs de Sysran sur la Volga, changes en queux tres-fin, qui a
conserve jusqu'a la texture organique du bois, et remarquables sur-tout
par les traces tres-evidentes de ces vers rongeurs qui attaquent les
vaisseaux, les pilotis et autres bois trempes dans la mer, et qui sont
proprement originaires de la mer des Indes."
This philosopher has now given us a view of what, according to the
present fashion of mineral philosophy, he has termed _montagnes
primitives, secondaires, et tertiaires_. The first consists in masses
and strata, much indurated and consolidated, and greatly displaced in
their position; but the character of which is chiefly taken from this,
that they contain not any visible mark of animal or vegetable bodies.
The second are formed in a great measure of marine productions, are
often no less consolidated than those of the first class, and frequently
no less changed in their natural shape and situation.
The third again have for character, according to this learned theorist,
the containing of those organised bodies which are proper to the earth,
instead of those which in the second class had belonged to the sea;
in other respects, surely there is no essential difference.
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