31 
phical ideas, were universally entertained respecting them. Men 
of considerable learning, either contented themselves with the 
popular notions, or, substituted for them theories, still more silly and 
preposterous. Thus our countryman Lhwydd, in his Ichmgraphia 
Lithophylacii Britannici, Langius in his Historia Lapidum Jigura- 
torum Helvetice, Dr. Plott in his Natural History of Oxfordshire, and 
numerous other writers, so little suspected the real origin of these 
bodies, that they described their peculiar forms as the sports of 
nature ; or attributed their formation to the action of a certain 
Plastic power, destined to the subterranean formation of these 
regularly formed concretions. 
So far was fancy indulged, whilst endeavouring to account for 
their origin, that it was even supposed, as I remarked in my last, 
that the seminal principles of various beings, raised by evaporation, 
and carried by the air, or by subterranean currents, were deposited 
in the several cavities of the bowels of the earth. These were sup- 
posed to have grown, during an anomalous kind of life ; and to 
have assumed a similar nature, with that of the particlar matrix, 
in which they had been deposited. 
Others, among whom Tournefort and Camerarius deserve parti- 
cular mention, fully believed in the vegetation of stones : and were 
convinced, that their seminal principles diffused, as well through 
the seas, as the earth, were gradually developed, and reduced into 
their appropriate forms, by a regular apposition of their particles ; 
somewhat in the same manner, as in the formation of regularly 
formed crystals. Every figured stone was supposed to have had 
its peculiar seed, its nourishment, and its growth. The beautiful 
and variously formed stalactites, which adorn the subterraneous 
caverns of Derbyshire, and of many other parts of the world, were 
supposed to be proofs of this species of vegetation; since their 
volume was observed evidently to increase, and apparently in deter- 
mined forms. 
