449 
added to the collection in the British Museum, by Mr. Douglas, by 
whom it is figured and described in his ingenious Essay on the An- 
tiquity of the Earth. ., r j • t 
Fig 6, 7, 8, of the same Plate, represent a fossil found m l^ei- 
cestershire. ’ It is of a triangular form ; three raised lines passing 
through its length, at equal distances, on the general rounded surface, 
give it an appearance rather difficult to .nutate. Sinular fossils are 
found in Derbyshire, and have been figured and described by Mr. 
Martin, in his history of the fossils of that county. Like the fopils 
already described, these must also be placed among those productions 
of a former world, which are unknown to us ; and which lead to the 
supposition, that a considerable difference must have existed between 
the subjects of the vegetable kingdom of that period and the presen . 
The fossil depicted at Plate IX. Fig. 2, is of a very dark iron-stone 
of a scoriaceous appearance ; bearing very nearly the fom o 
lemon : but which, however, I rather conjecture to have been the 
stone of some very large drupaceous fruit. 
Although from the ambiguous nature of the subjec s which have 
engaged our attention, we have frequently been obliged to re 
satisfied with conjecUiral remarks ; as yet we ®“®;7'?the 
difficulty, to draw a line of distinction between the subjec 
.nimal and of the vegetable kingdom. We novy come to the con- 
sideration of certain bodies of antediluvian origin, so 
their appearance as to render it exceedingly doubtml m w ic o 
two grand divisions of organized matter they should be p ace . ^ 
totally different are these bodies from any which are known o exis 
in the present world, that the mind not only hesitates at ^ 
whether they be of animal or vegetable nature,^ ut, mis e 
various fantastic forms which they assume, is dispose o ^ 
these several species, of perhaps the same genus, as o les 
Twidely from each other as ^s, figs, funguses, nutmegs, and 
corals. It was by a substance of this kind that, as we have already 
VOL. I. 
