chapter1, page15

Author's Comment

I know arrows don't shatter when they meet wood, but his staff or Silambu as it is called is made of petrified wood, or fossil wood. All the organic materials, inside it, have been replaced with minerals (most often a silicate, such as quartz) It looks like wood But is hard as rock. Colors vary based on the time of mineral that it contains. One such forest in India is The National Fossil Wood Park, located at Tiruvakkarai. It is hardly known to most of us.

Petrifaction usually occurs underground, and such a wood is as hard as quartz and gets a 7 for hardness in the Mohs scale.