32 MOLLUSCA. 
ii. Multiloculaires. 
Nautile, Orbulite, Ammonite, Planulite, Camérine, Rotn- 
lite, Turrilite, Baculite, Spirule, Orthocére, Hippurite, 
Belemnite. 
In this system which we have exhibited, the arrangement 
is more methodical, and the genera are more definite, than 
in the Linnean system. It unquestionably holds the first 
rank in the modern artificial methods. 
There is a class of writers whose labours deserve some 
notice in this place. We allude to those who have devoted 
their attention to the very minute shells, so common among 
the sand on every sea-coast. These are too small to be 
examined by the naked eye, and from the instrument em- 
ployed in their investigation, they are usually termed Mi- 
croscopic Shells. Plancus, in his work, De Conchis Arimin- 
ensibus minus notis, published in 1739, may be considered 
as the first who drew the attention of conchologists to these 
nearly invisible objects. J. F. Hoffman, in his Déssertate- 
uncula de Cornu Ammonis nativo Littoris Bergensis in 
Norvegia, published in the Transactions of the Electoral 
Academy of Mentz, 1757, and in his essay de Tubulis Ver- 
micularibus Cornu Ammonis referentibus, ibid. 1761, made 
us acquainted with various species of minute nautili pro- 
duced on the northern shores. Nor did those discoveries 
fail to excite interest in this country. Boys and Walker 
devoted their attention to the subject, and gave to the world 
the result of their labours, in a thin quarto, entitled, Tes- 
tacea Minuta rariora nuperrime detecta in arena littoris 
Sandvicensis, London, 1784. Other observers, equally ar- 
dent and successful, have increased our knowledge of the 
forms of these minute bodies, particularly Soldani, who, in 
his Testaceographia ac Zoophytographia parva et micros- 
