OF CORNWALL. i 37 
forth its vitriolic falts into white wool-hke threads : this is therefore 
the more apt to diftolve former, and to frame new aftociations. 
Some learned men have thought that the variety of foffils issECT.xvn. 
greater than that of plants ; Mr. Ray doubts it p , and the ^ he var,ous 
eftimate cannot be made with precifion till the fubterraneous mundics. 
parts of nature are as well known as the fuperficial. Many 
foffils have been difcovered fmce Mr. Ray*; in the 'year 1716, 
Doctor Woodward reckoned three thoufand forts, and diftinct 
fpecies are making their appearance every day : however, it muft 
be allowed, that it is very conffitent with the goodnefs and wildom 
of Providence that the furface of the earth ffiould be cloathed in a 
gayer drefs, and engage the attention of man with a greater variety 
of colours, ffiape, and beauty, than thofe parts which lie underneath, 
and come more rarely under the infpetftion of mankind. But na- 
ture, where-ever we purfue her, has not left herfelf without tefti- 
monies of her regard for colour, ffiape, and elegance; this will 
appear from the defcription of the figured foffils which follow, but 
in none more confpicuoufly than in the mundics, in which figure, 
luftre, gilding, carving, regularity, and finery, are as it were thrown 
into the fcaie to make amends for its little intrinfic value. As this 
mineral therefore has been hitherto very fparingly traced, I have 
given two plates of the feveral varieties which have reached my 
notice in this county, in a fearch of twenty years, all in their 
natural fize. 
Fig. 1. Bliftered mundic of the fmalleft grain, a kind of ftalag- plate xv. 
mites, or exfudation. Circular pro- 
1 1 . Bliftered D°. of high relievo, the blifters covered with fpan- gi™un- 
gles, fmooth, hexagonal, brafs-coloured, the fibres at a ffiootino- as dics ‘ 
from a center, and forming a femicircular opening like the arch 
of a bridge. 
hi. Surface fquamous, wrought like the fcales of a fiffi ; its 
texture radiated. 
iv. Part of an oval incruftation of brafs-coloured mundic, 
within which an elliptical cryftal pebble, ffiewing at the fedfion, by 
three lifts, the tremulous efforts of the cryftal when it ffiot. 
v. Three lumps of hexagonal, large-fpangled mundic, capping 
a piece of cryftal. 
VI * A gl°be or ball of fparkling, brafs-coloured mundic. 
vii. Part of a round nodulous pyrites ; its texture radiated from 
a central point, by the moifture of the air divided, and falling eafily 
afunder into taper pegs, as Fig. vm. 
p Of the Creation, page 21. 
N n 
* Viz. 1691. 
Fig. 
