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VOL. XX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. '283 



ner of lines running along its superficies ; so tliat it is capable of a good polisli, 

 and I find has in perfection that quality of the lapis-lydius, basanus or touch- 

 stone, so much celebrated of old, for showing the various impressions different 

 metals make upon it, when rubbed or drawn along its surface ; but being a 

 stone naturally divided into small pieces or joints, and of so hard a body, that 

 it turns or breaks the edges of the best tools, when they offer to cut it, it 

 seems unfit for the embellishing of houses, and all the other greater uses of 

 architecture and statuary. 



Its rough and natural outside that is exposed to the weather, is of a whitish 

 colour, much the same with that we see on common rocks and lime stone ; but 

 the inside, when you sever one piece fresh from another, is of a blackish iron- 

 grey, like that of the best black marble before it is polished, but somewhat of 

 a darker shade. And indeed I can discover but little, if any, difference be- 

 tween the substance of this stone and that of marble. And indeed the stone 

 of our Giant's Causeway agreeing so well in hardness, colour, and substance 

 with the ^thiopic marble described by Pliny, and Kentmann reducing a sort 

 of pillared stone in Misnia, near Dresden in Germany, that nearly resembles 

 ours in many of its properties, to the basaltes ; I thought I could not more 

 aptly refer it to any species of fossil yet known, than to that, and therefore 

 gave it the name of lapis basaltes, vel basanus hibernicus, but not being so 

 well informed then, I ran into a mistake, when I said, angulis minimum quinque 

 plurimum septem constafts ; whereas I should have said, angulis minimum 

 tribus plurimum octo constans ; and this shows it to partake still more of the 

 nature of the Misnian Basaltes, though it comprehends two sorts of pillars 

 which that has not, those of three and those of eight sides. 



But I shall forbear making any more of this kind of remarks or raising 

 deductions from them, considering that I write to one whose accurate ob- 

 servations, vast reading, and ample experience in fossils, can, if he please, 

 furnish me with those that are so much more instructive and judicious: and 

 shall therefore only intreat you to let me know your particular sense of this 

 wonderful product of nature, and your impartial censure of what I have said 

 concerning it; and then I shall quite accomplish all that I proposed to myself 

 by troubling you with this, the acquiring knowledge, and showing you that 

 I am, your's, &c. 



A Letter from Raymiind Vieussens, M. D. of Montpellier, to the Royal Society, 

 concerning the Human Blood. Dated Montpellier, June 6th, i6q8. ^n Ex- 

 tract from the Lntiji. N°241, p. 224. 



In this letter, addressed to the members of the Royal Society, the author 



o o 2 



