-5 



5' 



Of OXF0%p~SHI%E> Si 



Amongft the flones that have relation to the Heavenly Bo* 

 dies, the firft place I think may be reafonably given to fueh as 

 refpeft the greater Lights ; upon which account, fince the Flelio- 

 trope is not found here, much lefs the Gemma Solis, mentioned 

 by Pliny k ; The Sehnites or Moon-fione mull: have the precedence, 

 which we find in great plenty in a bluifh clay that lies above the 

 Rock at Heddin^ton Quarry,and in digging Wells,^. at Hampton- 

 Gay and Hanborough. 



4. Where by the way let it be noted, that I intend not by the 

 Moon-fione, the grey Tephrites of Pliny \ that grows like a Crefceriti 

 by the Greeks called Mend is ; nor that other ftrange ftone men* 

 tion'd by Pliny 2nd the Poet Marbodem m , corporeally containing 

 the Figure of the Moon increafing and decreafing, like that in 

 the heavens : but a ftone fo called, not from its figure, but (as 'tis 

 honeftly confeft by Qefner n and Agricola ) that only reprefents 

 the Image of the Moon, in all itsphafes, but beftatfull, juft as it 

 were in a glafs, and therefore by Authors is fomtimes called alfo 

 Lapis fpecularis. 



5. And thus much will our Sehnites do, if obverted to the 

 raies of the Moon in right angles ; which if all that is really in- 

 tended by the name, (for the very fame reafon) I know not why 

 it may not as well be called the Sun-fione too, fince it equally re- 

 prefents the one as well as the other. 



6. But though it hath nothing of the Moon in figure, yet it 

 is commonly found of a certain fhape , in circuit hexangulat, 

 but with two of the fides broader and more deprefied, in the' 

 form of a Rhomboides, as in Tab. 2. Fig. 1 . a. and therefore the 

 learned Steno p (which I think its beft name) not unfitly ftiled it 

 Selenites Rhomboides. Befldes the two larger Rhomboideal fides, it 

 hath eight others of an oblong fquare, in all making up a decahe- 

 drum parallelipipedum ; whereof the fquares of the two fhorter 

 fides of the great Rhomboides, one is fomtimes a rigbt angled ine- 

 quilateral parallelogram, as in Tab. 2. Fig. 1. and the other af 

 Rhomboid-, and fomtimes again they are both Rhomboids , but 

 thofe on the longeft fides of the great Rhomboids? as far as I have 

 obferved, are always Trapeziums. 



7. As to its texture, the grain runs feveral ways, but flits the 



k Nat.Hift.l16 37. cap. 10. > Nat. Hi ft. leco citato. Muf<eumCakeo!arium,fecl. 3. i>efigurk 

 l^idnm^cap 2. VtNaturnFojJiliumjlib.^. P JnVroctromo.pag. 74.. 



L eafieft 



