VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 351 



of meridians between Greenwich and Oxford 4m. 57 s.; between Greenwich 

 ^nd Dantzic, 1 h. 14m. 50 s. Also by the emersion the first of those differences 

 is found 4 m. 59 s.; and the latter 1 h. 14m. 41s. Which near agreement 

 shows the exactness of all the observations. 



Extract of tivo Letters written hy Mr. John Beaumont, jun. of Stoney Easton, in 

 Somersetshire J concerning Rock-plants and their Growth, or Trochitce and En-- 

 trochi. N** 129, p. 724. 



Mr. Lister, N° 79 of the Trans, judges that shells found in stone quarries 

 were never any part of an animal; and gives this probable reason for it, because 

 quarries of different stone yield us quite different species of shells, not only one 

 from another, but from any thing in nature besides, which either the land, salt, 

 or fresh water yields, and though some seem of the same species, and much like 

 each other, yet there is difference enough to hinder them from being sampled 

 by any. I myself observed the same thing some years since, when I endea- 

 voured to satisfy myself of the process of nature in this way; and have now by 

 me several species of stones resembling shell-fish, which I gathered from plough- 

 ed fields and quarries, that are scarcely to be paralleled, as I judge, by all the col- 

 lections of sea-shells extant. 



To examine this opinion of petrifaction further; perhaps it might seem rash 

 to deny a petrifaction of animals and vegetables, so many instances being alleged 

 on all hands by judicious persons attesting it; though I cannot say, that my own 

 observations have ever yet presented me with an ocular evidence of the thing: I 

 only find, that the thing supposed to be petrified, becomes first crusted over 

 with a stony concretion, and afterwards, as that rots away inwardly, the lapi- 

 descent juice insinuates itself by degrees into its room, and makes at last a firm 

 stone, resembling the thing in shape; which may lead some to believe it really 

 petrified. But though a real petrifaction were allowed in some cases, it would 

 not be rational to plead this in all the figured stones we see, on account of the 

 many grounds we have for the contrary. But I take these to be the chief rea- 

 sons which make some so ready to embrace so generally this conceit of petrifac- 

 tion, because they are prepossessed with an opinion against the vegetation of all 

 stones, and for that they think it impossible for nature to express the shapes of 

 plants and animals where the vegetative life is wanting, this being a faculty pecu- 

 liarly belonging to that soul, whereas they seem to err in both : for, as what has 

 been said concerning our stone-plant may suffice to prove their vegetation ; so 

 it will be as easy to show that nature can and does work the shapes of plants 

 and animals without the help of a vegetative soul, at least, as it is shut up in 



