330 



recent alcyonia. In the work there referred to, An Essay on the Natural 

 History of the Adriatic Sea, p. 8, French translation, being the only copy 

 of the work which I possess, he says : " Dans le voisinage des lies appel- 

 lees, Incoronate, est un rocher nomme Jadra, qui est tout plein de De- 

 bris de petoncles entierement changes en substance de marbre. 



" Peu loin de ce rocher on trouve un bas fond, ou bane, appelle Raspp, 

 ou Ton voit des os d'homme petrifies. Us sont dans un melange de 

 marbre de Rovigno, de terre rouge, et de stalactites. C'est pourquoi je 

 ne crois pas cette petrifaction aussi ancienne que les autres. J'ai aussi 

 deterre de ces os petrifies avec le meme melange a Rocosniza pres de 

 Sebenico, et sur les bords de la riviere Cicola du cote de Dernes." 



Abbe Fortis added to his other philosophical labours that of repairing 

 to the islands of Cherso and Osero, to observe these wonders. The fre- 

 quent heaps that are seen, the sameness of the substance, the variety of 

 the positions, and the similar materials of the congeries, might give room 

 to conjecture, he says, at first sight, that one immense stratum had been 

 thus composed in remote ages. 



There are two different heaps on the desert rock of Gutim; and a mile 

 from Gutim, at a place called Platt, on the island of Cherso, other 

 heaps are to be seen. He also found them in the caverns of Gher- 

 moshall, and at Porto Cicale, in the post of Vallishall, and at Balvanida. 

 Two large heaps were also found in the small island called Canidole 

 Picciola, and others in the small island of Sansego. The same charac- 

 ters, he observes, marks the Illyrick bones over all these islands and 

 along the coasts of Dalmatia. Along the torrent Cicola, between Sibe- 

 nico and Knin ; in Isola Grossa; in Corfu, in the Ionian sea; and in the 

 isle of Cyprus it appears, that similar fossil bones exist. Among these 

 bones the Abbe Fortis discovered the bones of sheep, and the teeth of 

 horses and oxen ; with other bones, which he believed to be human. Tra- 

 vels into Dalmatia by Abbt Alberto Fortis, p. 440, et seq. 



The island of Cerigo, in the Archipelago, is also mentioned by the 

 Abbe Fortis, as possessing these fossils ; which circumstance is also men- 



