£ *e» 3 
XII. Description of a rare Species of Worm Shells , discovered at 
an Island lying off the North-west Coast of the Island of 
Sumatra , in the East Indies. By J. Griffiths, Esq. Commu- 
nicated by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K. B. P. R. S . 
Read February 13, 1806. 
A short time after a very violent earthquake that occurred 
in the island of Sumatra, in the year 1797, these uncommon 
productions of nature were discovered ; the violence of the 
concussion was more particularly confined to that part of 
the island situated on the sea coast, between two degrees 
of the equator north and south, and to the islands adjacent- 
Its effects were most severely felt at Padang ; many lives 
were lost, and considerable damage sustained, by a most tre- 
mendous inundation of the sea ; this was also experienced at 
the low island of Battoo, distant from the coast of Sumatra 
about twenty leagues. 
These shells were procured in a small sheltered bay, with 
a muddy bottom, surrounded by coral reefs, on the island of 
Battoo ; upon the sea receding from the bay after the inundation 
they were seen protruding from a bank of slightly-indurated 
mud, and two or three broken specimens were brought to me 
at Padang, by the master of a boat trading between that port 
and the island, for cocoa-nut oil, sea slug, &c. 
As I had not observed any of these shells in the cabinets I 
