1754.] TO JOHN BAR TRAM. 361 



and greens boiled in water, without butter, * * avoiding all 

 the delicate aromata which the East and West Indies send to us. 

 What a change it must make in my body, that was from his yought 

 customed at dinner and supper, to a bottle and a half wine, besides 

 the rest when I get a friend ! However, I can tell to you, that I 

 left it all at once ; in three days the swelling of my feets and cruel 

 pains went off, and I my selv became not at all week, but contrary 

 I get a great strength, and sleep exceeding wel. So that I at 

 present am entirely at the service of my friends ; and now my 

 worthy friend, the Rev. Mr. Schlattek, returning to you, I take 

 the opportunity to send these to you. 



I am obliged to you for the description of the gape near the 

 Blew Mountains, all filled with stones. Betwixt Utregt and the 

 Loo, a country place builded by King William the III., is the 

 country all covered with sand-hills for about eighteen Dutch miles ; 

 but heer and there some low planes for a quarter of an hour, 

 which are all fild with stones, les and great, some larger than my 

 head, and most part flint stones. I believe realy all the country 

 under the sand there is covered with such stones. I have seen in 

 Flanders, when the King of France made a neAv rode about Brus- 

 sels, that they removed some immense sand-hills, and found at last 

 the ground all filled with loose stones all roundish, and here and 

 there some petrifications of a yellowish colour, but not separated ; 

 but shells of differend kind and cochles joined to one another by 

 the same calcarea materia of which the stones consists, so as 

 Rumphius represents in tab. 58, E. 



I am infinitely obliged to you for the petrified shells, with the 

 belemnites and other stones. I was surprised to see these shells, 

 for as much as I know, they are originally from the coast of Sicily, 

 and that way, under the name of Bucardia, of which several other 

 species are to be found upon the Alpes in Switzerland, and upon 

 the Mounts of in Italy ; but this particular species was never 



met calcinated or petrified. It is pity it was broken. Question is, 

 how now, and when, these creatures are brought from Sicily to 

 your country. It must be agreed, that there must have been a 

 passage by water betwixt these two places ; but what time it was 

 so, no body can say. That all the petrifications should be attri- 

 bute to the general deluge, is what I never shall agree ; but I 

 think, that with good reason we may derive them from the time of 



