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Mr. Peale, jun. who exhibited, in the year 1802, in this metropolis, 

 the astonishing skeleton of the Mammoth, found in the state of New 

 York, brought with him a few petrifactions, of which, he observes, an 

 infinite number is found in the neighbourhood of the morasses, from 

 which the remains of that wonderful animal were obtained. Of these, 

 he observes, they are in strange and unknown figures, and appear to 

 be generally marine productions, since various species of coral and 

 sea urchins were likewise found among them *. 



Among the American fossils, which Mr. Peale shewed to me, the 

 only one which appeared to be novel, and particularly interesting was 

 a piece of dark ferruginous limestone, on which were discoverable the 

 remains of some body, which although it in some respects resembled 

 the cast of a single-starred madrepore, it essentially differed from it in 

 other respects. About a month afterwards, looking in the shop of 

 Mr. W. Humphries, of Rupert street, over some specimens which had 

 belonged to Mr. Strangers collection, I fortunately met with a similar 

 piece of limestone, with some very perfect remains of this same 

 fossil. 



A careful examination of these shewed that they belonged to a 

 zoophyte, very like to that we have just examined. This fossil is 

 formed of an indeterminate number of lamellae, perpendicularly dis- 

 posed, with one edge towards the circumference, and the other in the 

 centre of a semicircular plane. The lamellae rise, in some of these 

 fossils, in a sugar-loaf form ; whilst in others, they rather expand at 

 their base, and then suffer a gentle contraction in their diameter, pre- 

 viously to their proceeding to assume a conical form. Around every 

 one of these conical bodies, a cavity exists, part of which has ne- 

 cessarily been removed, by the fracture which has exposed them to 

 view. Their form, therefore, cannot be ascertained ; their sides, how- 

 ever, may be concluded to be the inner sides of the parietes of a cavity 



* Account of the Skeleton of the Mammoth, &c. by R. Peale, p. 39. 



