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the earlier oryctologists. From circumstances which affect the for- 

 mation of stones, they are more likely to be disposed to assume the 

 oval or globular forms of seeds and fruits than of any other parts 

 of vegetables. To such, therefore, our present consideration will 

 be chiefly directed. 



Among those figured stones which have obtained the greatest 

 celebrity, from their resemblance to fruits, are the melons of Mount 

 Carmel. Melopeponites, Aldrovandi. These are crystalline geodes 

 which not unfrequently bear the forms of melons and other fruits: 

 the rounded, granular-formed crystals having been supposed to re<- 

 semble the seed, and credulity having sometimes gone so far as to 

 fancy, that the smell of the fruit was yet discoverable in its supposed 

 petrified remains. One of these petrified melons of Mount Carmel, 

 of a small size, and opened, is represented in Plate IX. Fig. 5. 

 The bare-footed friars of Mount Carmel have chiefly contributed 

 to the fame which these substances have acquired, they having, by 

 the aid of an old legendary tale, been able to render them an article 

 of profit to themselves, and of great curiosity with travellers, who 

 have resorted to Palestine. On this mount there is a particular 

 spot, which is termed the field of melons, where these bodies used 

 frequently to be found ; but which of late appears to have been 

 exhausted, by the traffic of preceding years. The legend says, " On 

 this spot was a garden-ground, well stocked with melons ; and that 

 the prophet Elias, the founder of the monastery, once asking the gar- 

 dener for one of his melons, he, with churlish humour, answered, that 

 they were not melons, but stones ; 'on which they were immediately 

 changed to stones, and have so remained to the present day." But, 

 according to the industrious friars of the order of Elias, the punish- 

 ment of the gardener's pertness did not rest here ; since they fur- 

 nish travellers with other fruits, which, happening to be in the same 

 garden, shared the same fate ; thus we have the Pomum crystallinum, 

 &c. For the mode in which this extraordinary miracle was per- 



