CONCHOLOGY. 



FOSSILIA, Family— NANTES, or SWIMMERS. 

 Genus— MONOCULITHOS. 



Species Tzco-r-l. Polymorpus. 2. Hexamorphus. 



THE curious circumstances of the Dudley fossils, have 

 already engaged a considerable portion of our attention in 

 the preceding number, and at the same time we endeavoured, 

 as far as our brief limits would allow, a short but general 

 account of some pecularities in the fossil kingdom, and we 

 shall now resume, being a subject hitherto not sufficiently 

 discussed, so far as relates to the animal-remains of our own 

 kingdom. It perhaps has not escaped the observation of 

 the reader, that a great number of the polished marbles used 

 in the decorations of art, contain a numberless infinitude of 

 fossil shells, and of animal and vegetable exuviae. The 

 marble quarries of Kilkenny, in Ireland, contain an amazing 

 number of petrified shells inclosed in a black ground, and 

 which, when cut across, resemble the circular slices of 

 onions, that these are not of the Cardium, or Cockle-kind, 

 is obvious, and specimens of the Cornu Ammonis, Argo- 

 nauta, and of many different patterns of the Monoculilhos, 

 as well as the Tubeporite and Madrepore, are frequently 

 inserted, all attesting their marine origin. In Derbyshire, 

 Scotland, and Wales, even upon the most inland vallies 

 and mountains, the same objects are exhibited in strata of 

 limestone, chalk, or clay, attesting strongly the univer- 

 sality of the flood. 



If any circumstance were wanting to prove to our 

 senses their marine origin, nothing can be stronger than one 

 of the present instances of Monoculithos Polymorphus, 

 No. 1, where a small fossil-shell of the Mya genus is found 



