32 MOLLUSCA. 



ii. Multiloculaires. 



Nautile, Orbulite, Ammonite, Planulite, Camerine, Rotn- 

 lite, Turrilite, Baculite, Spirule, Orthocere, Hippurite, 

 Belemnite. 



In this system which we have exhibited, the arrangement 

 is more methodical, and the genera are more definite, than 

 in the Linnaean system. It unquestionably holds the first 

 rank in the modern artificial methods. 



There is a class of writers whose labours deserve some 

 notice in this place. We allude to those who have devoted 

 their attention to the very minute shells, so common among 

 the sand on every sea-coast. These are too small to be 

 examined by the naked eye, and from the instrument em- 

 ployed in their investigation, they are usually termed Mi- 

 croscopic Shells. Plancus, in his work, De Conchis Arimin- 

 ensibus minus notis, published in 1739, may be considered 

 as the first who drew the attention of conchologists to these 

 nearly invisible objects. J. F. Hoffman, in his Dissertati- 

 uncula de Cornu Ammonis nativo Littoris Bergensis in 

 Norvegia, published in the Transactions of the Electoral 

 Academy ofMentz, 1757, and in his essay de Tubulis Ver- 

 micularibus Cornu Ammo?iis referentibus, ibid. 1761, made 

 us acquainted with various species of minute nautili pro- 

 duced on the northern shores. Nor did those discoveries 

 fail to excite interest in this -country. Boys and Walker 

 devoted their attention to the subject, and gave to the world 

 the result of their labours, in a thin quarto, entitled, Tes- 

 tacea Minuta rariora nuperrime detecta in arena littoris 

 Sandvicensis, London, 1784. Other observers, equally ar- 

 dent and successful, have increased our knowledge of the 

 forms of these minute bodies, particularly Soldani, who, in 

 his Testaceographia ac Zoophytographia parva et micros- 



