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one of these bodies as nux moschcata fructu rotiindo. Casp. Bauhin.* 
Scheuchzer, on the authority of Volkmann, adopted the same figure 
and description. Nor will this error be considered as without 
excuse, when the great resemblance of many of these substances to 
terrestrial fruits is shewn. Indeed, I much suspect that, after all the 
circumstances have been examined, some persons will be found who 
will not be readily disposed to consider substances, bearing such ap- 
pearances, as subjects of the animal kingdom. The propriety how- 
ever of doing this will perhaps appear, when other bodies will be shewn 
passing, through almost insensible gradations, from these bodies, which 
so closely approximate, in their general appearances, to the subjects of 
the vegetable kingdom, up to others, whose characters are sufficiently 
marked, to leave no doubt whatever in the mind as to their animal 
origin. 
No one I believe has been more industrious, or more successful in 
their inquiries, respecting these bodies than M. Guettard, as appears 
by his very ingenious Essay, Sur qiielques Corps Fossiles peu connus, in 
the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at Paris for the Year 1757. 
M. Guettard observes that, at Verest, near Tours and Saumur, and at 
Montrichard, in Touraine, there are found, at some depth in the 
earth, numerous bodies, which, from their very close resemblance, in 
figure, to figs, pears, oranges, and other fruits, are there considered as 
fruits, which, having fallen from their trees, have been buried in the 
earth, where they have undergone the process of petrifaction. These 
bodies, it appears, not only differ very much from each other, in 
their forms, but also in their structure : and in Mons. Guettard’s judge- 
ment are divisible into two kinds ; those which possess somewhat of a 
globular form, and those which are conical or funnel-formed. 
The former, he observes, may be divided into the body or glo- 
bular part, and the pedicle or elongated part. In the centre of the 
* Silesiae Subterranese. Tab. XXII. Fig. 6. 
