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Nic. Steno, in a dissertation, De Solido.intra Solidum Contento, pub- 

 lished in 1639, at Florence, displayed a considerable degree of sound 

 judgment in his inquiries respecting these substances. The Museum 

 Metallicum of the indefatigable and illustrious Aldrovandus, publish- 

 ed in 1648, also contains the descriptions and delineation of several 

 fossil bodies. The work of Augustino Scilla, De Corporibus marinis la- 

 pidescentibus, published at Naples in 1670, also supplies a consider- 

 able portion of information, the result of most careful and anxious 

 inquiry. About this period too, several learned men undertook to 

 publish the oryctological history of several different parts of Germany, 

 Italy, &c. Thus the fossils of Silesia were described by Caspar 

 Schwenkfeld; those of Hildesheim by Frid. Lachmund, in 1669; and 

 those of Switzerland, in 1680, by Jo. J. Wagner. About this time 

 was also published a dissertation, by Jo. Dan. Geyer, at Frankfort, 

 De Montibus conchiferis et glossopetris Alzeyensibus ; and at Leipsic, a 

 dissertation by Albertus, De Figuris variarum Rerum in Lapidibus, et 

 speciatim Fossilibus, Comitatus Mansfeldice. Nor were the fossils of 

 this country neglected ; the Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia 

 of Lhwyd, published at Oxford in 1669, contained a very ample ca- 

 talogue of English fossils, contained in the Ashmolean Museum. In 

 1664 was published, by Thomas Lawrence, Mercurialis Centralis ; or 

 an Account of Subterraneal Cockle and other Shells in Norfolk. 

 Several English fossils are also described in Dr. Plott's Natural 

 History of Oxfordshire, published in 1686 ; as well as in that of 

 Staffordshire, written by the same author. In the Natural History 

 of Northamptonshire, by Dr. Morton, and in Dr. Leigh's Natural 

 History of Cheshire, Lancashire, and of the Peak of Derbyshire, 

 which were published nearly at this time, several curious particulars 

 are recorded, relative to fossil bodies found in these parts. But the 

 most important publications of this period, which related to these 

 substances, were those of Dr. Woodward, particularly, the Natural 



