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however, worthy of notice ; since it serves to show, although perhaps 
not decidedly, that the belemnite is not a nucleus, which was contained 
in a shell, but that it now possesses the same surface which it did in its 
recent state. This is, however, more plainly evinced by the specimen, 
Plate VIII. Fig. 9, in which this substance has been eroded, and 
apparently by some insect, to a considerable depth. That this was 
effected previous to its existence in a spathose state, cannot be denied 
to be most probable ; and if the substance had been gelatinous, and 
contained in a shell, these erosions could only have been of the shell, 
and consequently exterior. This circumstance, therefore, is strongly 
in proof of this part of the belemnite having been a solid substance, 
capable of admitting the attacks of an insect, and of bearing the marks 
of the injury. 
De Luc and Lamarck very ingeniously suppose, that the belemnite 
itself was contained within the body of the animal, in the same manner 
as the bone of the sepia or cuttle-fish. This opinion is far from being 
without probability ; but it does not appear that, at present, we possess 
any means of forming a determination on this point. 
The Belemnite deserves to be placed among the earliest fossils, not 
only from the recent belemnite being, in all probability, lost ; but from 
the fossils with which it is in general associated, the Cornu ammonis, 
JEncrmus , &c. having also outlived their recent analogues. 
M. Walch doubts the existence of silicious nuclei of the belemnites, 
He says : “ Que la noyau pierreuse de la belemnite puisse parvenir a 
un si haut degre de durete qu’elle donne du feu lorsqu’elle est frappee 
avec l’acier, c’est du quoi nous doutons beaucoup. Worm, Lange, 
Brukman, et d’autres l’ont soutenu, mais probablement ces naturalistes 
ont confondu avec les belemnites une sorte du pierre a feu, qui leur 
resemble parfaitement et que l’on trouve dans la craye. Monumens des 
Catastrophes, fyc. Tome. n. p. 229- That the cast of the conical cavity 
of the belemnite may be of such a degree of hardness, there can, how- 
ever, be no doubt. I possess one, which is completely silicious ; and 
