There be many petrifying Waters; and indeed I believe few of the Waters but participate of a petrifying Quality, tho' there be few Pebbles or paving Stones to be found in all the Country. But I have found many Sticks with crusty Congelations round them in the Ruins of Springs, and Stones figured like Honey-Combs, with many little Stars as it were shot in the Holes. And nothing is more common than petrefy'd Shells, unless you would determine that they are parts of natural Rock shot in those Figures, which indeed I rather think; but thereof hereafter. Mr. Secretary _Spencer_ has told me of some Waters participating much of _Alome_ or _Vitriol_ towards _Potomack_. Up beyond the Falls of _Rapahanack_ I have heard of Poisonous Waters. But these I only mention as a hint to further Enquiry of some others, for I can say nothing of them my self. _A Continuation of Mr. _John Clayton_'s Account of _Virginia_._ _Of the Earth and Soil._ When you make the Capes of _Virginia_, you may observe it low Land, so that at some distance the Trees appear as if they grew in the Water; and as you approach nigher to emerge thence. For a hundred Miles up into the Country, there are few Stones to be found, only in some places, Rocks of Iron Oar appear, which made me expect to have found many Waters turn Purple with Galls, but never met with any. Providence has supplied the common use of Stones, by making the Roads very good: so that they ride their Horses without shooing them; which yet are more rarely beaten on their Feet, than ours are in _England_, the Country and Clime being dry, their Hoofs are much harder; For I observed, that take a Horse out of the wet Marshes, and Swamps, as they there call them, and ride him immediatly, and he'll quickly be tender-footed. In some places, for several Miles together, the Earth is so intermix'd with Oyster-shells, that there may seem as many Shells as Earth; and how deep they lie thus inter-mingled, I think, is not yet known: for at broken Banks they discover themselves to be continued many Yards perpendicular. In several places these Shells are much closer, and being petrefied, seem to make a Vein of a Rock. I have seen in several places, Veins of these Rocky Shells, three or four Yards thick, at the foot of a Hill, whose Precipice might be twenty Yards perpendicular, whose Delf, I suppose, shot under the Hill, pieces of these Rocks broken off, lie there, which, I suppose, may weigh twenty or thirty Tuns a piece, and are as difficult to be broken as our Free-stone. Of these Rocks of Oyster-shells that are not so much petrified, they burn and make all their Lime; whereof they have that store, that no Generation will consume. Whether these were formerly Oysters, which left by the subsiding Seas, (as some suppose, that all that Tract of Land, now high Ground, was once overflowed by the Sea) were since petrefied, or truly Stones, _sui Generis_, I leave to the Honourable Society to determin.