490 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1754. 



at Leysdown, in the isle of Sheppey, a mile eastward of the cliffs of Minster. 

 This, with other parts, as one of the spinal vertebrae, a thigh-bone 4 feet long 

 and numberless other fragments, too rotten to be then taken up entire, he saw ; 

 all which lay below high-water mark : and as the place, and some adjacent land, 

 soon after, became his property by a purchase he made, he went, attended by 

 workmen, in search of more, and found an elephant's tusk; and, as it lay entire 

 to appearance, took its dimensions ; which were, in length, 8 feet ; and in cir- 

 cumference, in the middle, 12 inches: but it fell all to pieces, when they en- 

 deavoured to raise it. He found also part of a scapula, its sinus almost entire, 

 and 3 inches diameter. He found also some pieces of grinders. The pyrites 

 however abounds so much in the clay where this animal was embedded, that he 

 despaired of finding any whole bones : but he thinks these fragments are suf- 

 ficient to show, that the elephant was as large as that mentioned by Tentzelius, 

 in these Transactions. 



The apex of the tusk, which Mr. J. preserved, together with the acetabulum, 

 were both found within 20 feet of the other bones mentioned, and were, as Mr. 

 J. apprehended, in better condition then than at the above date, from their 

 being taken up immediately on being discovered, and not left to be exposed to the 

 injury of the weather, and violence of the tides ; which soon affects bodies so ex- 

 posed, after having lain under ground for ages. 



LXXXIF. On the Animal Life of those Corallines, that look like Minute Trees, 

 and grow upon Oysters and Fucuses all round the Sea-coast of this Kingdom. 

 By Mr. John Ellis, p. 627. 



The doubts still remaining on the minds of many learned men, of the animal 

 nature of corallines, on account of their beautiful ramifications, and regular plant- 

 like appearances, determined Mr. E. to persuade Mr. Ehret to accompany him 

 to the sea-side, that he might there be an eye-witness of what he had advanced, 

 and to make exact drawings of the several different objects, as they appeared to 

 him through the microscope. 



Accordingly, June 3, 1734, they set out, and arrived at Lewes in Sussex that 

 evening, and the next morning at Brighthelmstone. The weather being very 

 calm, and few fucuses or corallines being thrown ashore on the beach, they hired 

 a fisherman, the next day, to take up some, oysters from an old oyster-ground, 

 that had been long disused, lying about 3 or 4 leagues off to sea, and where, by 

 his description, the shells were covered with great varieties of these minute tree- 

 like corallines ; with directions that, as soon as he took them out of the sea, he 

 should immetliately put them into a bucket of sea-water ; but unfortunately he 

 put the oysters into a fisherman's basket ; by which means many varieties were 

 dead, though they received them 2 hours after they were taken out of the sea. 



