17 
Ceraunia and Ombria, supposed to be thunderbolts — Ostracites, 
which, though harder than shell, bears the name and resemblance of 
the oyster — Syringites, which is formed with cavities, by which it 
resembles the pipes of straw — Spongites, bearing the form of sponge 
— Phy cites,- resembling sea- weed or rushes. 
He also speaks of a black light substance, resembling wood; 
of stones, resembling the teeth of the hippopotamus ; and observes, 
that Theophrastus speaks of fossil ivory, both black and white ; of 
bones born in the earth ; and of stones bearing the figure of bones. 
Ovid tells us, 
Vidi ego, quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus, 
Esse fretum. Vidi factas ex aequore terras : 
Et procul a pelago conchae jacuere marinse ; 
Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis. 
Metamorph. lib. xv. 1. 262. 
Alexander ah .Aleoeandro says, he remembers to have seen in the 
mountains of Calabria, at a considerable distance from the sea, a 
variegated stone of a hard marble, in which many sea-shells, but 
little changed, were heaped, forming but one mass with the marble. 
He also relates, that Jovianus Pontanus informed him, that being 
once on the promontory of Pausilypus, near Naples, he saw in the 
middle of a piece of a stone, which was broken from the rock by 
the violence of the tempest, a wooden beam, surrounded on every 
side by stone, and grown into one body with the rock.* 
Tertullian also, anxiously endeavouring to prove, fi'om natural 
appearances, that a general deluge had, according to scripture, 
taken place ; dwells, particularly, on the discovery of the remains of 
marine animals on mountains, and on various parts of dry land, at a 
considerable distance from the sea. f 
For several succeeding ages, the writers of natural history were, at 
* Gemalum Dierum, liber quintus, 1532. f De Pallio, cap. ii. pag. 6. ed. Salmas. 
