VOL. XXI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACIIONS. 381 



On a Jigured Stone found in Wales. By Mr. Lhoid. With a Note by Dr. 



Sloane. N° 252, p. 187. 



I send the representation of a limestone-marble, lately discovered in this 

 country, when polished. We have plenty of it ; but few pieces exceed 6, g, or 

 12 inches diameter ; for it is only a sort of alcyonium, incorporated in several 

 small blocks of the limestone. Fig 7? ph 8, represents a piece polished per- 

 pendicularly, and fig. 8, horizontally. I think it more beautiful than the Flo- 

 rentine marble, but much more hard and substantial. 



Dr. Shane's Note. — This stone is a sort of coral, and the lapidis astroitidis 

 sive stellaris primum genus Boet. de Boadt, or astroites worm, Mus. It grows 

 in the seas adjoining to Jamaica. It is frequently found fossil in England. I 

 have some of it, found here, that will polish as well as agate. Many other 

 things grow in the seas about Jamaica, and are not to be found in these parts, 

 that are frequently dug up in the inland parts of England and elsewhere, near 

 to which places they do not naturally grow. 



Concerjiing a Disease caused by sivallowing Stones. By Sir Cha. Holt. JVilli 

 Remarks on the same, by Dr. Hans Sloane. N° 253, p. IQO. 



Thomas Gobsill, a lean man, aged about 26, being for 3 years extremely 

 troubled with wind, was advised to swallow round white pebbles; which he did 

 as often as the fit returned, and the stones passing easily through him he found 

 great relief, and repeated it often with the same success. But some months 

 after, being seized with a violent fit of wind, he swallowed his usual number 

 of stones, viz. Q, but these not passing, he repeated the dose continually, till 

 he had taken above 200. He had these stones in him above 2-i. years, when he 

 first came to me, and then complained that his appetite w.ts gone, that he could 

 digest nothing, but threw up every thing he eat. On examining his belly, I 

 found the stones lay almost as low as the os pubis, and thrusting my fingers just 

 above that bone, so that the lower part of the abdomen might lie on my hand, 

 I could with the motion of my hand shake them, and make them rattle as if 

 they had been in a bag. Having made this discovery, I caused a ladder to be 

 set against a wall, and hung him by the hams on the inside of the ladder with 

 his head directly perpendicular to the ground. Whilst in this posture, he told 

 me the stones were got up to his stomach, but being set again upon his feet, 

 after a very small time we could plainly hear the stones drop successively one 

 after another, and so distinctly, that they might be counted. 



When his body is not laxative, he vomits all he eats or drinks ; to prevent 

 which he commonly keeps it open with whey. As he lies in bed, the stones 

 will sometimes get up, as he expressed it, almost to his heart, and give him 

 great disturbance ; at which times he is obliged to get upon his knees, or to 



