72 



by a spongy or horny substance, and covered with a softer porous and 

 cellular flesh, does not present to our observation many fossils. 



One species, and that, as far as acute inquiry has gone, a species 

 unknown in a recent state, alone demands our examination. This 

 fossil is depicted, Plate VIII. Fig. 2, 4, and 7> from specimens 

 which Mr. Strange obtained from Sicily. Augustine Scilla called the 

 attention of the learned to this fossil, in his interesting work La Vana 

 Speculazione Disingannata dal Senso, which afterwards appeared in a 

 more condensed form in a Latin edition, published at Rome, and in- 

 titled De Corporibus Marinis Lapidiscentibus qu& defossa reperiuntur. 

 Scilla relates that, at one time, he was disposed to attribute the origin 

 of these fossils to the leg bones of some animals ; but, having dis- 

 covered this error, he states it to be his corrected opinion, confirmed 

 by some well preserved specimens, that these substances are the frag- 

 ments of some jointed coral, bearing a strong resemblance to the 

 knotted coral described by Imperatus*. The coral of Imperatus, he 

 observes, was found in the sea near to the Island of Majorca; whilst 

 the corals he describes were found in the Calabrian mountains, but 

 of their origin, as well as whence they were brought to this island, 

 he remarks, we are entirely ignorant. 



This fossil is now a compact foliated _calcareous stone, of a long, 

 slender, and cylindrical form, expanding at each end in an articular 

 body, the ends of which, in some specimens, rise suddenly in a 

 pyramidal process, which is generally a little to one side of the centre 

 of the surface; and in others, the ends are formed into such depressions 

 as would seem to accord with the risings just described. Even the 

 naked eye discovers very fine striae, which pass longitudinally over 

 these bodies, entirely to the edge of their enlarged terminations, on 

 the face of which circular striae may be also seen : and in those speci- 

 mens which have suffered some degree of disintegration, it will be 



* Imp. Hist. Nat. Libr. 27. 



