VOL. LVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 459 



corallines of Linnaeus, which he says he has accurately examined, are most 

 evidently true plants of the genus of conferva; because there are no polypes 

 coming out of their tops, and that they have seed inclosed in their cells like 

 Other marine plants. But, as another part of this letter is intended for aik 

 inquiry into this new discovery of Dr. Baster's, that corallines are confervas ; a 

 thing never known even to Mr. Ray, Dr. Dillenius, or any other botanist, 

 I shall now proceed to Dr. Pallas, of Berlin, who has lately resided in Holland, 

 and who has taken great pains in collecting every thing that has been written on 

 the subject of zoophytes, whence he has compiled a book called Elenchus 

 Zoophytorum, where he has ranged the several genera and species of this class 

 of beings in a systematical order. When he comes to the genus of Corallina, 

 he says, p. 418, " They are to be left to the botanists, as they belong to the 

 *' vegetable kingdom ; but makes this apology for inserting them, lest his book 

 " should be thought imperfect, as Linnaeus and Ellis have ranked them as 

 *' zoophytes in their works." 



He begins with observing, that they come not near to any one genus of 

 zoophytes, either in their structure or chemical principles ; that some species 

 have a peculiar appearance, some approach to fucuses, many are like confervas; 

 but that all of them are very distinct from them, and from all vegetables, on 

 account of their lapidescent substance. That they differ in their chemical 

 principles from zoophytes; for when they are burnt, they smell like vegetables: 

 and that, according to Count Marsigli's Experiments, Hist. Mar. p. 73, they 

 neither contain a volatile salt, nor animal oil. That the pores in their calcarious 

 substance, are too small for polypes to inhabit them; and that the pores of 

 fucuses prove them to be as much animals as the corallines, even when their 

 pores are rendered more visible, by having the calcarious substance, that 

 surrounds them, dissolved by an acid. That the great Jussieu, in his diligent 

 researches after marine productions, could see no visible token of life in them. 

 That Mr. Meese, who has lately written a Flora Frisica, has found a coralline 

 growing on a heath in Friesland; which Dr. Pallas says, is a strong proof 

 of their vegetable origin. Lastly, that their fructification is so nearly analogous 

 to those of fucuses and confervas, that he likewise takes that to be a proof 

 of their belonging to the vegetable kingdom. 



To proceed then. — Dr. Pallas after telling us that corallines are vegetables, 

 says, that some of them are like fucuses. In this I must agree with him; 

 because his first corallina, which he calls corallina pavonia, is truly of that 

 genus of plants: this most elegant fucus I have particularly described and 

 figured (Essay on Corall. p. 88, t 33, fig. c, d, e,); it is well known by the 

 name of turkey-feather fucus, and is called, in the Species Plant, p. l630, 

 Fucus Pavonius. What could have led Dr. Pallas into this mistake? most 



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