232 THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY 



tioned. Such are the Stones Otites, or Aurjculares, 

 several sorts of Cardites, which though they as exactly 

 resemble those parts of Men, from whence they have 

 their Names as any Conchites or Echinites do those Shell- 

 fish : yet no Man that I ever heard of, so much as 

 dreamed that these were ever the real parts of Men, in 

 process of time thus turned into Stone. As well might 

 we say that our Kettering Stone in Northamptonshire, 

 here in England, was once nothing else but the spawn of 

 Lobsters : than which that I know of, there is nothing 

 more like." If I might express an opinion, I should say 

 that, as it stands, this is a very excellent argument ; but 

 it would have been open to an opponent to reply that it 

 is vitiated by one serious mis-statement : the simulacra 

 of human organs which are referred to as Otites and 

 Cardites do not as exactly resemble those organs as the 

 Conchites and Echinites do those shell-fish ; in the latter 

 case the resemblances are far more numerous and pre- 

 cise, and are, if anything, more marked in the internal 

 structure than the external form ; so that, even when 

 agreement in form fails, similarity in structure, which 

 is all-important, remains. This cannot be said of the 

 Otites and Cardites. 



The argument is then pushed a step farther by point- 

 ing out that the resemblance between organism and 

 formed stones is frequently not so close as is asserted : 

 thus the Cornua Ammonis had been likened to the shells 

 of Nautilus from which they certainly differ in important 

 particulars ; but in addition to these minor points of 

 difference Dr. Plot triumphantly cites instances in which 

 they had been observed with " heads." " ' Vidimus enim 

 lapidem hinc delatum serpentis in spiram revoluti effigie, 

 cujus caput in circumferentia prominuit, extrema cauda 

 centrum occupante,' are the very words of Mr. Gambden." 



Although this instance is an unfortunate one, since the 



