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X 78 Mr. S.L. Wood in speaking of Fayette county, says "In the soil of some prairies, small dividing ridges of earth in the centre, which run through those denuded lands at parallel distances, as if thrown up by [art?] is found the third variety or glassy actynolite. In the prairies near Buckner's creek, blocks have been discovered imbedded horizontally. It has been found on the Piedernales in granite." A. Cty Gaz April 8th 1840

 In Buckner's creek 10 or 12 miles from the Colorado is said to exist a Malaclitic cave of some extent.  A

Stalactite pool 40 miles W. from Austin. A Basin of rock, full of fish & very large Pearic? stalactites hanging from above. File:Drawing of stalactites asbestos, bones, other fossils, sea eggs, ?

78

[long newspaper or book article]]:

To the westward of Buckner's Creek are found the remains of a large tree in a fossil state; and what attaches a remarkable singularity, is the fact that the different fragments, composing its body exhibit, in their organized perfectibility, a disparity in the stage of their formations.  By affixes of the several dismemberments its circumference could be very nearly estimated at 18 feet, and admitting 6 foot for the diameter, and allowing one hundred years for the completion of each diametrical measurement of one foot, we have presented to  us the gigantic growth of about six centuries.  However long it may have been attaining it s present wonderful magnitude, the conclusions are indubitably evident that it was once a seedling, and that the seed from whence sprang the tender germ was the organized particle of a similar vegetable; nor could it be esteemed a paralogium to continue the pleasing retrograde consideration, from one flashing thought to another, until the mind, carried retracingly backward by the imagination, would repose upon chaos, or would bewilder, and become involved in the dark vista of times to which man's arithmetic can supply no numbers for affixing dates.
  After much reflection, and unassisted comparison having been carefully made, it has been determined to rank this mammoth production, of the various species of fossil botany, among the spruce tribe, or Gymnospermous phancragane, to which it bears a close relationship.  It seems to have aggerated to a gritty and ferruginous sandstone of a brownish hue, is not decorticated, and retains every familiar appearance of an ancient native of the American forests.  Upon exposure to the most powerful heat of he furnace it undergoes no visible deflagration; and if afterwards immersed in water, becomes demulcent, and crumbles readily in the fingers.   In its fragmentary state, no calculation can be made as to the probable length of its trunk.   It is one of the last deposits of the tertiary strata, and is discovered immediately at the junction of two small delves formed by the washings of heavy rains.  This specimen is one of the organic remains of the land, and though a rare one of the kind, belongs to a class the most  numerous of all fossil productions, whether of the sea or land.   So far as an opportunity was afforded to examine, indefinitely, the composition of the different beds, forming the stratum in which this fossil appears eviscerated,  it is as follows: -
 First bed, or vegetable soil.  Lixivial clay admixed with alluvium, and myriads of freshwater shells.
 Second bed, - Sand, clay and conglomerate.
 Third bed, - Soapstone, beds of gravel, and clay, alternately.
  The neighborhood, for miles around, shows an alluvial surface, slightly variating, and with but few undulations, excepting towards La Grange, where, about 12 miles distant, the face of the country assumes a more acclivous appearance, and gradually ascends to cuspidating eminences.  From local evidences one is impressed with the belief, that the present tree had been torn from  some more congenial region by the violence of the waves of the sea, and discursive upon the ocean's billows for probably years, was at last deposited where it now is, and where it has undergone the alternating changes producing its present curious state.   There are no circumstances attending to exclude the idea that this plant has been drifted from a more fructiferous latitude to it s present situation; rather, on the contrary, its particular situation, and the state of things by which it is surrounded, would tend greatly to corroborate the opinion that it is not a local deposit.
  Some one has mentioned the having seen a tree, in Eastern Texas, which had been felled by the axe, the trunk and stump of which had petrified.   In this county (Fayette) the body of a common post-oak, sanding in the wood, and in its erect position, has undergone the petrifying process, evidently long since the afforesting of the land.  These, however, it is the design to notice at a more convenient time.