Royal Society. 47 
been dried up with fummer-heats 5 and he concludes, that the 
Conchylium it {^\{^ burned or calcined, is of thej lame efficacy 
with the 'Purpura and "Buccinum burnt : In the chapter of Nard^ 
he farther lays, that the Indian Nard grew near the river Ganges^ 
that is, in certain lakes, cauled by overflowing of that river: 
Hence, it appears firft, that the Ungnh odoratu's was part of a 
freih water Conchylicum. 2. If it was generated in the nardife- 
rous lakes upon the river Ganges^ how comes it that the fame was 
brought from the Red-Sea and Babylon? i\nd why iliould the 
fliell Jt lelf be brought lb far as from the river Ganges to Greece^ 
fince the Operculum was rarely a tenth part of the fliell it lelf? 
Dr. Lifter does therefore conjecture, that the true Unguis odora^ 
Tus was fomething like the half of a Te£iunculus Fluviatilis, ib 
common in the river T'hames^ of the largeneis and bignels of a 
thumb-nail j and that for thefe reafons. i. That the Unguis 
odoratus leems to have been a frefh water bivalve or mufcle, be- 
caufe it uasnot gathered 'till the lakes on the river Ganges were 
dried up 5 now bivalves are buried in the land and mud, and ne- 
ver rife and Iwim about or float as the turbinate Ihails do, to 
which latter only the 0/'^ra////;» belongs, and which therefore were 
at all times and eafily to be caught. 2. iJiofcorides calls this 
Ihail Conchyliur/jy and by that general name he diltinguilhevS it 
from all the other forts, concerning which he treats in leveral 
chapters 5 which tho' in general it takes in both kinds, as well tur- 
binate as bivalve, yet it does more particularly denote a Concha ov 
bivalve. 5. The Onyic is exprcsfly reckoned by Tliny amongft 
the bivalves 5 for/. 32. r. 11. the following denominations are 
iynonimous, viz. Solen, Aulos^ 2)ona^^ Ony^, five tDadylus • 
and again more particularly, /. p, c, 61. he lays that the 'Dakyll 
are of the bivalve kind, and io denominated from their relem- 
blance to the nails of the fingers 5 lb that in all probability the 
OnyiQ odoratus anciently brought out of, rhe freih-water lakes 
about Ganges in Indla^ was not unlike the common Onyx of the 
Mediterranean, which was of the Sokn kind : Whatever the Jg'/^r- 
ta Syzantina of the fliops be, it hath certainly nothing of the 
charaviilers of the ancient aromatick Unguis, which in all probabi- 
lity was loft, on account of the difficult paflage from the Ganges 
into lU'.rope-y Dr. Lifter is of opinion, that it was a good medi- 
cine, from its ftrong aromaric imeil, which is much wanting in 
our tcfbaceous powders. 
To the third, the Purpura of rhe ancients is well made out and 
^gured by Fabius Columbia 5 and it is one of the moft common 
JlJurices of the Mediterranean j in this he could not be much mil- 
taken. 
