224 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



men here at home, so, holdmg at that time a correspond- 

 ence in Holland, he might in all probability have trans- 

 mitted the occasion for Dr. Herman's most palpable 

 hallucination abroad. 



June 3, 1690. 



Mr. Lhwyd to Mr. Eay. 



Honoured Sir, — The formed stones were very accept- 

 able. The Oculi serpentum are, indeed, of the same kind 

 with those they call Toadstones. The Cats-heads seem 

 to me to be arches or joints of some Cornii Hammonis. 

 Bacilli S. Paidi are of the same substance with those 

 stones that resemble the bristles of some American Echini, 

 which, as I mentioned in my last. Dr. Plot has called 

 Lapides judaici ; nor is the Doctor much mistaken 

 therein, for the real Lapides judaici seem to be nothing 

 else but overgrown stones of this kind, as your large 

 Glossopetra is amongst the rest of that sort ; whereof I 

 have seen one found in Sheppey much larger than that 

 elegant one you sent me. When I say overgrown, I mean 

 a large sort, or variety, much exceeding those of its fa- 

 mily; which puts me in mind of a current report, how 

 that in the county of Antrim, in Ireland, there are divers 

 large pillars of star-stones able to support a church. 

 How your bastions of St. Paul differ from our bristle- 

 stones, you will best judge from some I shall send you. 

 The vertebrae seem to be so indeed, and to have under- 

 gone but a small alteration. Those inscribed Dentes 

 serpentum and Ova, I can say nothing to. 



A Synopsis Method, of the Animals and Fossils of 

 England would, doubtless, prove very instrumental to the 

 advancement of natural history ; and though a complete 

 enumeration of those things would require much time, 

 labour, expense, and travail, yet I doubt not but such a 



