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History of English Fossils. This valuable work contains a cata- 

 logue of that valuable collection of fossils which the Doctor had 

 formed, and which is now in the possession of the University of 

 Cambridge. Some notice is also taken of these substances in Chris- 

 topher Merret's Pinax Rerum naturalium Britannicorum, the first 

 part of which was published in 1667 ; at the same time Mons. 

 Childrey published, at Paris, L'Histoire des Singularites naturelles 

 d'Angleterre, d' Europe, et du Pays de Galles, in which several fossil 

 substances are spoken of. 



Rieske, Major, Kirchmajer, and Sachs, deserve also to be mention- 

 ed, for the aid they yielded to this science at this period. Several very 

 valuable contributions also appeared, in different periodical publica- 

 tions, illustrating several parts of the science. Among those most 

 worthy of attention, a dissertation of Wolfgang Wedel may be 

 placed, with the utmost propriety. In this dissertation, De Conchi* 

 saxatilibus, which he introduced in 1672, in the Ephernerides pub- 

 lished under his direction, he differed widely from his contempora- 

 ries ; and unreservedly asserted, that the stones, bearing the form of 

 shells, were actual petrifactions, being natural shells converted into 

 stone. 



Among the last supporters of the opinion of the generation of 

 these bodies in the bowels of the earth, may be mentioned the cele- 

 brated Langius, who strenuously contended for their having thus 

 obtained their forms and existence : Dr. Plot, who believed their 

 figures to result from the operation of certain plastic powers with 

 which certain saline bodies were endowed : and, lastly, Lhwyd, 

 who combated the vis plastica of Plott, and supported the ideas of 

 their production from the seminia of fishes, &c. raised with vapours 

 from the sea ; and conveyed by the clouds and rain, through the cre- 

 vices into the internal parts of the earth. The more rational con- 

 jecture of Woodward, who attributed their situation to the effects 

 of the general deluge, was rendered of less effect, in opposing these 



