45 



The lithostrotion, according to Dr. Woodward, is all found on the 

 rocky cliffs, about two miles from Tenby, towards Milford, in Pem- 

 brokeshire. But it is also found both on the river shores, and on the 

 mountains in several other parts of Wales : and in Lancashire, Cheshire, 

 Yorkshire, and in several other parts of England and Scotland. It is 

 also found in different parts of Germany. 



From the similitude of this fossil to a spider's web it might with 

 propriety derive a name, had not a name, thus derived, been already 

 applied to a coral of a different species. Perhaps the other epithet 

 given to it by Volkmann would not be considered as very inapplicable; 

 in which case it might be named madrepora vorticalis. 



Da Costa, who distinguishes by the terni marmoroidcK those stones 

 which, although they have all the physical and chemical properties of 

 marble, are not found in continued strata, but are only found in loose 

 independent masses, lodged in strata of other substances, has named 

 the stone which this coral has formed marmoroides column-arts stcllutuSy 

 lithostrotion dictus. 



One of the fossil corals which has been considered as belonging to 

 this family, is the lapis arachneolithi, or spider-stone, respecting which 

 the celebrated Bruckman wrote an ingenious disquisition in a letter to 

 his friend, the learned Hitter*. From this it appears that stones, which 

 from their marks and form, bore a resemblance to the body of a spider, 

 from which the head and legs had been removed, were frequently 

 employed in some parts of Germany as a powerful charm for the cure 

 of all kinds of haemorrhages. These stones, according to the received 

 vulgar opinion in those parts, were supposed to have been generated 

 and voided by a spider. It was also imagined by the country people, 

 that every spider, remarkable for its magnitude, contained one of these 

 stones: to obtain the expulsion of which, the spider was to be enclosed 



* Fr.ErnestiBruckmaimi, de fabulosissimae Originis Lapide ARACHNEOLITHO dicto Epis- 

 tola. 1722. 



