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bodies. The various descriptions and delineations of them, under the 
names of Lapides circulares, numismales, &c. had given rise to the 
notion, that each of these referred to bodies of completely distinct 
species ; whilst their want of resemblance to the form of any known 
recent animal, led to various erroneous conjectures, as to their original 
mode of existence. Thus deceived, some, among whom was Stobseus, 
in Opusculis, p. 8, placed them among those coralline bodies which 
were named by the oryctologists of that period Porpitce, naming 
them Porpitce nummulares and Fungitce minimi, pediculo destituti. 
Bourguet also, misled by similarity of figure, considered them as the 
opercula of some particular species of shells, and probably of the 
Cornu ammonis. Brevn, in 1732, first showed that they were the 
mineralized remains of a fossil concamerated shell, which might 
perhaps be considered as a species of Nautilus. This discovery was not, 
however, supported by evidence sufficiently satisfactory to every one ; 
since Spada, Catalog. Lapid. Veronensium, p. 46, in 1739, ventured 
to offer the opinion, that these bodies ought to be considered as 
bivalve shells. The opinion of Breyn was however confirmed, in the 
same year, by the discovery of recent minute shells on the Riminian 
shores, which were evidently of an analogous structure. 
Some have concluded this fossil to have been an internal bone of 
some animal, similar to that of the sepia ; and even Lamarck was of 
opinion, that it was not the shell of an animal. “ En effet (he says) 
je soupconne que les nummulites ne sont pas des coquilles, mais des 
polypiers voisins des alveolites.” Systeme des Animaux sans vertebres, 
p. 402. But Breyn, Gesner, Bruguiere, and, lastly, Lamarck, have, 
upon strict examination, concluded that the nummulites is a conca- 
merated shell, corresponding very nearly to that of the Cornu ammonis. 
Bruguiere remarked, with astonishment, the extreme smallness of the 
first chamber of the shell in which the animal may be supposed to have 
dwelt : the discovery, then, not having been made, that in Nautilus 
and Spirula a considerable part of the animal might overlap and 
