I've just come across the following item in the September 1822 edition of "The
Gentleman's Magazine" and thought it might be of interest:-
"The singular coal-mine at Bovey, eight miles from Mouton, has been sunk in
little more than half a century to the depth of about seventy-three feet,
displaying immense layers of timber, disposed horizontally, stratum super
stratum. The upper trunks exhibit bark in a state little altered, and their own
substance completely ligneous; beneath, the wood appears to be more compacted
together, and yet lower the masses resemble jet or kennel coal. Here is most
curiously opened to view the gradual transmutation of the vegetable to the
mineral character."
The piece is attributed to the (or possibly a) "Devonshire Paper".
Keith Ramsey
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