219 



and hexagonal plates. The upper part of the conical end is wrought 

 round with six large hexagonal plates, and these reach half-way the 

 stone; then follows a second round, made up of eleven pentagonal 

 plates, pretty large, and these reach almost to the broad bottom, 

 which is a little convex, the bottom itself and feet contain plates of 

 all makes, but most of them are very small.'' 



Mr. Beaumont calls them, with Mr. Lister and Ray, Rock Plants, 

 and adds, " we may truly say, that there have been and are whole 

 fields or forests of these in the earth, as there are of coral in the Red 

 Sea/' 



" I must own, (Mr. Beaumont says) the knowledge of its being a 

 radix to Mr. Lister's hint, though I have Agricola by me, but did not 

 well mind him : and because the perfect radix was smooth on the 

 top, and many other pieces of radixes which I have by me, they did 

 not well indicate the thing, though upon a review I find one of them 

 with small rays there." Mr. Beaumont thus designates the particular 

 fossil, of which he has given a figure. " A curious radix, somewhat 

 more entire than elsewhere to be found, on which those rock plants 

 sometimes grow, though it be manifest, that they often grow also from 

 plain roots */' 



Both Mr. Lister and Mr. Beaumont have supplied the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions with figures of these bodies ; that furnished by the 

 latter gentleman being exceedingly correct. But entertaining a di- 

 rect contrary opinion respecting this fossil, from that which these gen- 

 tlemen were led to adopt; believing, that instead of its being the 

 base or radix of the entrochus, it is the summit of the column, or the 

 pelvis, from which the arms, fingers, and tentacula of the animal 

 proceeded, and which was supported by the trochital column, it be- 

 came necessary to represent it, in a reverse position to that in which 

 it had been placed in those figures. I therefore availed myself of the po- 

 lite and prompt assistance which I have always received during my re- 



* Philosophical Transactions, Vol. X. 



