VOL. XVII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 589 



they discover themselves to be continued many yards perpendicular. In several 

 places these shells are much closer, and being petrified, seem to make a vein of 

 a rock. I have seen in several places veins of these rocky shells 3 or 4 yards 

 thick, at the foot of a hill, the precipice of which is 20 yards perpendicular; pieces 

 of these rocks broken ofF lie there, which may weigh 20 or 30 tons each; and 

 are as difficult to be broken as free-stone. Of these rocks of oyster- shells, that 

 are not so much petrified, they burn and make all their lime, and the quantity- 

 seems to be inexhaustible. Often in the looser banks of shells and earth are 

 found perfect teeth petrified ; some of which I have seen could not be less 

 than 2 or 3 inches long, and above an inch broad ; though they were not maxil- 

 lary teeth, the part that one might suppose grew out of the jaw was polished, 

 and black, almost as jet; the part which had been fastened in the jaw and gums 

 was brown, and not so shiningly polished, or smooth. If they were, as they 

 seemed to be, really teeth, I suppose they must have been of fishes. The 

 back-bone of a whale, and, as they say, some of the ribs, were dug out of the 

 side of a hill, several yards deep in the ground, about 4 miles distant from 

 James Town and the river. Mr. Banister, a gentleman pretty curious in those 

 things, showed me likewise the joint of a whale's back-bone, and several teeth, 

 some of them found in hills beyond the falls of James river, at least 150 miles 

 up into the country. The soil in general is sandy. The country is one entire 

 wood, consisting of large timber trees of several sorts, free from thickets or 

 under-wood, the small shrubs growing only on lands that have been cleared, 

 or in swamps ; and thus it is for several hundreds of miles, even as far as has 

 yet been discovered. 



Observations on the Seeds of Cotton, Palm, or Date Stones, Cloves, Nutmegs, 

 Gooseberries, Currants, Tulips, Cassia, Lime-tree ; on the Skin of the Handj, 

 and Pores ; of Sweat, the Crystalline Humour, Optic Nerves, Gall, and Scales 

 of Fish and the Figures of several Salt Particles, &c. By Mr. Jnth. Fan 

 Leuwenhoeck. N° 205, p. 949. 



Since my former observations on the seeds of plants, (Phil. Trans. N° 199*) 

 I was surprised to find a variety from what I then wrote concerning the mealy 

 and oily substance, as likewise the embryo plant itself, to be nourished by 

 them in the seeds of cotton, which lie 8 or 9 in clusters, in the cotton-wool 

 that comes from India ; for having opened the hard shell or rind, with which the 

 seeds are covered, and from whence the cotton proceeds, and stripping them 

 from the curious, thin, whitish coat, which wraps up each seed so as to look 



* P. 325, of this V olume of these Abridgments. 



