[ 402 ] 
fuch large Spines.* — In w hatever manner the greater 
Part of fuch Shells may have perifh’d (which is un- 
likely, if we confider their Texture and Strength), 
fome mud have efcapcd, when the Spines are found 
in fuch exceflive Numbers every- where, and always 
perfed and regular 5 whereas the foflil Spines, or 
Lapides Judaici , as they are call'd, as Tikewife the 
Echini ox Shells, and all the foflil Bodies of marine 
Origin, are found broken and flutter'd in all kinds 
of Manners. 
As for their being Shells of the Tubuli Kind, my 
Reafons againft it are; Were the Belemnites fuch, 
they mud be all tubular more or lefs 5 or otherwife 
mull have fuffer'd fome Degree of Fetrifadion to 
fill up their Cavities. The Unreafonablenefs of that 
Argument is demondrated by all Belemnita being of 
one and the fameTexture and Conftitutionj tho’ Num- 
bers are folid, and Numbers are tubular, in different 
Degrees. Now one Kind of Petrifadion, or any 
other Change in the Earth, which they might have 
undergone, could never have given fo regular a 
Texture and Subdance, and caufe fuch different Ef- 
feds as Solidity and Tubularity. And if, on the 
other hand, we allow it to be inconfldent, as it is, 
to form the Idea of a Shell of the Tubulus Kind, by 
a folid Body, without that Body having differ'd 
fome Change in the Earth, while buried in ir, we 
mud either deny all folid Belemnites to be fuch Tu- 
buli, and run to Subterfuges, by owning them to 
be natural Foifils 5 or clfe allow a great Inconfidency, 
to uphold a wrong Syftem. 
That the Belemnites are nor a tubular Cafe, which 
is Part of, and covers a Shell of the Nautilus Kind, 
as 
