72 
by a spongy or horny substance, and covered with a softer porous and 
cellular flesh, does not present to our observation many fossils. 
One species, and that, as far as acute inquiry has gone, a species 
unknown in a recent state, alone demands our examination. This 
fossil is depicted, Plate VIII. Fig. 2, 4, and 7, from specimens which 
Mr. Strange obtained from Sicily. Augustine Scilla called the at- 
tention of the learned to this fossil, in his interesting work La Vana 
Speculazione Disingannata dal Senso, which afterwards appeared in a 
more condensed form in a Latin edition, published at Rome, and in- 
tituled De Corporibus Marinis Lapidiscentibus qua defossa reperiuntur. 
Scilla relates that, at one time, he was disposed to attribute the origin 
of these fossils to the leg bones of some animals ; but, having dis- 
covered this error, he states it to be his corrected opinion, confirmed 
by some well preserved specimens, that these substances are the frag- 
ments of some jointed coral, bearing a strong resemblance to the 
knotted coral described by Imperatus.* The coral of Imperatus, he 
observes, was found in the sea near to the Island of Majorca ; whilst 
the corals he describes were found in the Calabrian mountains, but 
of their origin, as well as whence they were brought to this island, 
he remarks, we are entirely ignorant. 
This fossil is now a compact foliated calcareous stone, of a long, 
slender, and cylindrical form, expanding at each end in an articular 
body, the ends of which, in some specimens, rise suddenly in a 
pyramidal process, which is generally a little to one side of the centre 
of the surface ; and in others, the ends are formed into such depressions 
as would seem to accord with the risings just described. Even the 
naked eye discovers very fine striae, which pass longitudinally over 
these bodies, entirely to the edge of their enlarged terminations, on 
the face of which circular striae may be also seen : and in those speci- 
mens which have suffered some degree of disintegration, it will be 
* Imp. Hist. Nat. Libr. 27. 
