[ 294 I 



■the forms are prcfcrved uncommonly perfed, but even every 

 refidue of animal matter that could be expeded to refift the 

 natural deftrudive caufes, and the immenfe lapfe of time in 

 any, the moft favourable circumflances, is found ftill exifling. 

 The prominent brown matter with which all the harder and lefs 

 corruptible parts of the animal are fo ftrongly marked in the 

 ftone, and which may be detached from it with the point of a 

 knife, infpedion alone will determine to be of a nature wholly 

 difterent from the inclofing fubftance, and as far as can be- pre- 

 fumed without analyfis, to be lihe adual dry remains of the 

 animal bodies, in fuch a ftate as almoft to authorize their being 

 called fifli-mummiesj. 



But when we recoiled of what very foft and corruptible ma- 

 terials the bodies of fiflies are compofed, not confifting of the 



firm 



in bituminous fchiftus, in Caithnefs on the river Thurfo near Carfgo ; and on 

 the flope of Gerfton-hill. To thefe I will add a fifh engraved and (hortly men- 

 tioned by Do£lor Na(h, in his Hiftory of Worcefterfliire, p. 236, and found in a 

 £lone-pit of the parifh of Cleve or Clive in that county, for the communication 

 of which I am indebted to the Bifhop of Dromore. With regard to moft of thefe 

 the ingenious M. Volta, in his Elements of Mineralogy, publifhed in 8vo. at Cre- 

 mona, 1787, p. 292, obferves, after ftiortly mentioning the fifh of Mount Bolca, 

 that in Germany and elfewhere flate and calcareous ftones are found containing 

 the impreffions of the bones or Ikeletons of various fpecies of fifh, the reft of the 

 animal being deftroyed ; and thefe impreifions he denominates Typolites, to dif- 

 tinguifli them from thofe which he calls peculiarly Icthyolites, which term he 

 confines to fuch fpecimens as exhibit the animal itfelf either dried or petrified ; 

 and of thefe laft the only inftance that he gives is the fifh of Bolca. 



J M. Volta calls the manner in uhich thefe fifh are preferved a Natural Em- 

 ba miiig — Elem. Min. p. 



