Excerpt from Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. 8: Comprising Portions of His Diary From 1795 to 1848 Mr. Dorsey, member of the House of Representatives from Maryland, introduced a Mr. Scott of that State. Mr. Breese, the District Attorney of Illinois, was here. He made me a present of a petrified pear, found in Monroe County, in the State of Illinois, in 1826. It has the shape and size of a St. Michael's pear, and became petrified apparently as it fell from the tree, without decaying. It is split in two, and the core is Of a separate and different induration from that of the pulp. It is flattened on the side upon which it lay on the ground, and bears a faint impression of a leaf, upon which it must have lain. I asked him if other petrifactions were common at or near the place where this was found; but he did not know. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.