149 



the flood. Having reached this point, still but little further progress was 

 made, for some time, in the knowledge of the real nature of these 

 bodies. The various descriptions and delineations of them, under the 

 names of Lapides circulares, mimismalcs, &c. had given rise to the notion 

 that each of these referred to bodies of completely distinct species ; whilst 

 their want of resemblance to the form of any known recent animal, led 

 to various erroneous conjectures, as to their original mode of existence. 

 Thus deceived, some, among whom was Stobseus, in Opusculis, p. 8, 

 placed them among those coralline bodies which were ramed by the 

 oryctologists of that period Porpita, naming them Porpita nummulares 

 and Fungita minimi, pediculo destituti. Bourguet also, misled by simila- 

 rity of figure, considered them as the opercula of some particular species 

 of shells, and probably of the Cornu ammonis. Breyn, in 1732, first 

 showed that they were the mineralized remains of a fossil concamerated 

 shell, which might perhaps be considered as a species of Nautilus. This 

 discovery was not, however, supported by evidence sufficiently satisfac- 

 tory to every one ; since Spada, Catalog. Lapid. Veronensium, p. 46, in 

 1739, ventured to offer the opinion, that these bodies ought to be con- 

 sidered as bivalve shells. The opinion of Breyn was however confirmed, 

 in the same year, by the discovery of recent minute shells on the Ri- 

 miriian shores, which were evidently of an analogous structure. 



Some have concluded this fossil to have been an internal bone of some 

 animal, similar to that of the sepia ; and even Lamarck was of opinion, 

 that it was not the shell of an animal. " En effet (he says) je soup9onne 

 que les nummulites ne sont pas des coquilles, mais des polypiers voisins 

 des alveolites." Systeme des Animaux sans vertebres, p. 402. But Breyn, 

 Gesner, Bruguiere, and, lastly, Lamarck, have, npon strict examination, 

 concluded that the nummulites is a concamerated shell, corresponding 

 very nearly to that of the Cornu ammonis. Bruguiere remarked, with 

 astonishment, the extreme smallness of the first chamber of the shell in 

 which the animal may be supposed to have dwelt : the discovery, then, 

 not having been made, that in Nautilus and Spirula a considerable part of 



