1824.] Mr. Dillwyn on Fossil Shells. 117 



which he says has a Greek derivation. How comes it that we 

 have no accounts recorded of any voyages made to a great dist- 

 ance beyond the Straits of Gades much earlier than 600 years 

 before Christ. Then with respect to the Greeks trading here, 

 Camden says, that they came here 160 years before Csesar, and 

 Bochart fixes the period more than a century lower, 117 years 

 before Christ. These Greeks were adventurers whohad quitted 

 Samos with the intention of forming a colony on the coast of 

 Egypt, and were driven by a storm through the Straits, near 

 which place they settled. These were the only people of that 

 nation who traded with us. Nor after the destruction of Car- 

 thage do I believe that the Romans frequented this country, for 

 if they had done it, the spring tides would certainly have been 

 well known to Ceesar.* 



I am not unacquainted with the account in Strabo, lib. 3, of 

 the Phoenician vessel being run on shore by the crew when pur- 

 sued by a "Roman. That could not possibly have taken place 

 until the conclusion of the first Punic war, and by that time, and 

 long before the trade in tin had been established across France 

 by the Marseiilois, a Greek colony, who had quitted Phoctea, 

 before Christ 539, and had carried on the trade in tin and amber 

 with the Romans, to which Herodotus points, and which is sub- 

 sequently detailed by Diodorus Siculus. 



I trust, Sir, that you will allow these few observations to be 

 inserted in the Annals, solely with the view of drawing Mr. 

 Hodgson's attention to the subject, and with the hope that he 

 will kindly favour us with a paper " On the Tin Trade," in one 

 of your future numbers. 



I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



A Tinner. 



Article V. 



On Fossil Shells. By Lewis Weston Dillwyn, Esq. FRS.f In a 

 Letter addressed to Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. Pres. RS. 



As fossil shells are more numerous, and generally occur in a 

 better state of preservation than any other of the organic remains, 

 they have become one of the most interesting objects for geolo- 

 gical research, and there is such an exact conformity in the 

 structure ot'raanv of these fossils with the living genera, as to 

 render it in the highest degree probable, that the habits of their 

 animals were also similar. By availing ourselves of these ana- 

 logies, some circumstances attending the distribution of fossil 



* hih. iv. sect. 9. + From the Philosophical Transactions for 182.J, Part II. 



New Series, vol. vii. n 



