TOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 181 



as to the colour, they were somewhat gilded with a vitriolic tarnish at first 

 receiving them ; but they were white, and in a short time came to their natural 

 colour. 



In the stone- quarries in Hinderskelf-park, near Malton, I had this stone, 

 (fig. l)the greatest rarity of this kind I ever met with, and which I took out 

 of the rock there myself. It is a fair glossopetra with 3 points, of a black liver 

 colour and smooth ; its edges are not serrated; its basis is, like the true teeth, 

 of a rugged substance; it is carved round the basis with embossed work; it has 

 certain eminent ridges or lines like rays drawn from the basis to each point. 



IV. Of certain Dactyli Idem, or the true Lapides Jicdaicij found in England. 



Fig. 5. 



The stones called Dactyli Idaei, and Lapides Judaici, are brought over to us 

 from beyond seas in divers shapes, and some of them are described in authors. 

 We have plenty of them for kind in these parts, as in the stone-quarries at 

 Newton, near Hemsley, and at Hellingly, by Malton. There is some variety 

 in the figure of them here also ; but the most common one in these rocks is 

 after the fashion of a date-stone, round and long, about an inch, and sometimes 

 longer. They are a little swelled in the middle, and narrower towards each 

 ,end : they are channelled the length way, and on the ridges knotted or purled 

 all over with small knots, set in a quincunx order. The inward substance is a 

 white opaque spar, and breaks smooth like a flint ; not at all hollow in the 

 middle, as are the Belemnites. 



V. Of the Electrical Power of Stones in relation to a Vegetable Rosin. 



Having occasion, in July, to view certain fossils, which I had disposed of into 

 divers drawers in a cabinet, made of Barbadoes cedar, I observed many of the 

 stones to be thickly covered over with a liquid rosin, like Venice turpentine. 

 Examining further, there was not a drawer, wherein there was not some more 

 some fewer stones thus drenched. That this could be no mistake, as from 

 dropping, the bottoms of the drawers are of oak. Again, many stones which 

 were wrapped up in papers, were also wholly infected and covered with this rosin. 

 Besides, after diligent search, there appeared no manner of exudation in any 

 part of the cabinet. • Two things I thought very remarkable : 1 . That of the 

 many sorts of stones I had there, divers escaped, but not any of the haematites 

 kind ; having therein manganese, shistus, botryades, &c. which were all deeply 

 concerned. 2. That among perhaps 500 pieces of the astroites, here and there 

 one or two in an apartment, and sometimes more, were seised, and the rest dry ; 



