464 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1767. 



Pallas is in the right, as I have had an opportunity of examining a small speci- 

 men, that my worthy and learned friend Dr. Schlosser of Amsterdam was so kind 

 to procure me: but how such a nice and accurate philosopher as Dr. Pallas could 

 let it escape him to consider the nature and quality of this subject, and how 

 much it differs from any thing else growing on the land, is a thing that surprises 

 me. It only being mentioned by Mr. Meese, as found on Bergummer heath, 

 ought not to have satisfied him so far, as to declare a body with a calcarious 

 crust to be a land production, when no such thing in the whole vegetable king- 

 dom has ever been found; it has always been thought quite the contrary, that 

 a stony or hard substance of that nature, could not be produced but from an 

 animal, and chiefly those that live under water. This should certainly have made 

 him minutely inquire in what manner it was found, if buried under moss, loose 

 on the ground, or perhaps near some of the canals, which communicate with 

 the sea. Many accidents might have brought it thither, which is more probable 

 than to imagine nature to go out of her usual track. It is not improbable that 

 that part of Holland has been overflowed by the sea, and this production left 

 there when the water subsided, or blown there by a storm, which I beg leave to 

 believe till I am better informed. I do not in the least doubt of Mr. Meese's 

 veracity; but as that gentleman was more intent on discovering vegetables than 

 animals, and thinking this very like a dry lichen fruticulosus, he scrupled not to 

 believe it to be one of that tribe; and therefore perhaps neglected to observe all 

 those circumstances that we now wish to be informed of. 



The irregular pedunculated figures or fructifications (as Dr. Pallas pleases to 

 call what is represented in pi, 11, fig. 29) seem to be rather a defect in the 

 growth of the ramifications, especially as they differ from each other in shape, 

 and some of them appear beginning to form other branches. In fig. a the whole 

 consists of two opposite curled processes, with a small cavity between them at 

 the top; this cavity is filled up at fig. b, so that the top becomes rounded; in 

 fig. cc there seems to be a beginning of a continuation lengthwise; and in fig. d 

 it is still more plain the beginning of a branch. If the inside of these processes 

 had been hollow, and the outside of a regular figure, I should not have hesitated 

 to consider them to be the ovaries of the coralline ; but as they are solid, and of 

 the same structure with the rest of corallines, I shall rather call them defective 

 branches. 



Dr. Pallas's last argument to prove that corallines are vegetables is, that the 

 nodules or tubercles, which he has observed in corallines, contain little seeds sub- 

 analogous, or somewhat resembling those we find in the fructification of the 

 fucuses and confervas. If this method of reasoning should hold good, what will 

 become of the cellularias, sertularias, and millepora calcarea et agariciformis, 



